While the development of R2P as a concept has been the preserve of international relations theoreticians (albeit ones with large amounts of practical experience), its implementation rests on the practitioners of the day. And these practitioners deal in the world of realpolitik with all of its inconsistencies, relativities and competing national interests.
Hatred is a current ‘cool’ fad, but a terribly dangerous one. As with Holocaust deniers, evidence does not deter those Islamophobes who smear all Muslims. Since Muslims are roughly 1/5 of the world’s population, they would be wrecking massive worldwide havoc if their nefarious goal was domination and destruction of all non-Muslims. It clearly isn’t.
Recent years have seen the intensification of political tensions between various states in the Pacific and East Asia. The rise of China as a military and economic power has necessarily triggered concern in the region, causing nations to reexamine their air-power procurement and development plans.
When Anna Hazare was detained by the Indian authorities to prevent him from protest-fasting against the government’s version of the Lok Pal Bill, he declared the beginning of India’s “second freedom struggle. His use of satyagraha, fasting-as-protest, and the adornment of the Gandhi cap are materially, discursively and performatively evocative of Gandhi’s freedom struggle.
A simple sentence could summarize almost a decade of negotiations, both political and economic, over a field that has not brought a single drop of oil to the surface: “No oil, plenty of ink”. The case of Kurmangazy, an oil field which lies about half way between the Russian and the Kazakh coasts, helps us understand the multidisciplinarity and the importance of the role of energy in foreign policy decision-making.
The phenomenon of Chinese migration to Serbia, which is one of their newest migration destinations in Europe, is hardly ever mentioned in migration literature. By developing transnational links and translocal livelihood strategies, Chinese traders are transforming disadvantages of both sending and destination areas into opportunities.
Traditionally perceived as continental powers, Russia and China are increasingly looking to invest significantly in the development of their maritime capabilities, most notably through the development and deployment of aircraft carriers. This reflects an aspiration broader than that of simply enhancing their respective naval strength.
Police brutality is now part of everyday life in Greece. Violence from extreme political circles of all directions is on the rise, and an overall feeling of everyone-against-everyone makes evident the crumbling of Greek society.Thus, the only thing that Greek Police seem to be good at is to provoke indignation.
Perhaps, looking back at the EU’s performance in the Libyan crisis in five years’ time, the best lesson to (re-) learn is that the EU is not good at hard security policy, but does a very decent job when the task is about dealing with the aftermath of conflict. Stable democracies cannot be built on the battlefield. They require a whole different set of capabilities than what NATO can offer.
The death of Qaddafi is, naturally, a very public symbol that his reign of oppression is over and will not return, but this is not the end of the story for Libyans, the UN or NATO. The campaign to maintain peace between the various factions could prove to be more difficult than the defeat of Qaddafi’s forces.
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