Archivo de la etiqueta: Ukraine

Revisiting Colour Revolutions

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Colour_revolutions_2013 Slovenia: next playground for NED operatives? Graffiti in Ljubljana, presumibly made by Odbor VLV, during the recent demonstrations

Revisiting Colour Revolutions

Carlos González Villa, Ljubljana, April 25, 2013

Over the last years, systemic world crisis has shaped political processes and has determined global approaches of the sole superpower of the Post-Cold War. In this context, foreign policy of the United States has been focused on preserving its presence and influence in a world in which several countries and whole regions have started to take over responsibilities of their own future. Considering this, US foreign policy community and “democracy-promotion community” in Washington DC (as Thomas Carothers denominates it) have developed since the 1980s new ways of influencing political changes in the peripheral and semi-peripheral areas of the world-system. So-called “colour revolutions” in Eurasia were a consequence of this idea.

Through these events, the United States  managed to canalize internal political changes with instruments of ‘soft power‘. Revisiting this phenomena is relevant, considering its influence in recent events, like the Arab Spring, or in other cases outside the Eurasian space (a good example can be found in Venezuela)

Nevertheless, it should also be noticed that learnings of colour revolutions could still be put into practice by the United States in other parts of the world in the future.

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The Messages Of Russia’s Military Exercise In The Black Sea

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Russian President Vladimir Putin watches a military exercise in Anapa, a Russian Black Sea resort. Read also: China and Russia conduct ‘surprise’ military exercises

The Messages Of Russia’s Military Exercise In The Black Sea – Analysis

By Habibe Özdal, Journal of Turkish Weekly, April 1, 2013

Putin, Russia’s president, ordered for a military exercise in the Black Sea after his participation to the BRICS Summit on 28 March 2013 in South Africa. Under his command, the navy ships set forth on Sevastopol Harbor of Ukraine. During the three day drill 36 warships and over 7,000 military personnel were reported to participate in the military exercise in Russian territorial waters. Dmitri Peskov, the press secretary of Putin, stated that it had not been considered as necessary to forewarn the Black Sea riparian countries about the exercise within the context of international practice since the number of the troops was limited 7,000.

Peskov clarified that the aim of the exercise was to improve the war power of Russian navy by using the statement “The aim of this greatest exercise of all times is to make sure whether our navy is able to perform a duty in case of war”. Indeed, the discussions related to the modernization of Russian army flared up after the Georgia War in August 2008. Yet, according to some analysts, the infirmity of the Russian army, who had intended to not to lose control over former Soviet region, became evident after Georgia War.

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Kroatien: Zaghafte Reformen reichen für den EU-Klubausweis

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Riber, Presseurop

Kroatien

Zaghafte Reformen reichen für den EU-Klubausweis

Florian Hassel, Süddeutsche.de, 26. März 2013

Auf 15 knappen Seiten stellt die Europäische Union Kroatiens angebliche Beitrittsreife fest. Tatsächlich leidet das Land unter seiner rückständigen Wirtschaft, einer kaum funktionierenden Justiz und ist geprägt von Klientelismus und Korruption. Doch auch der Bundestag als letzte mächtige Instanz wird dem Weg Zagrebs in die EU zustimmen.

War da was? Etwa die vorschnellen Beitritte Bulgariens und Rumäniens, die 2007 in die EU aufgenommen wurden, obwohl sie dafür weder politisch noch wirtschaftlich reif waren – und es sechs Jahre und etliche Milliarden Fördereuro später immer noch nicht sind? War da was mit Griechenland, das ebenfalls überfordert war im rauen Wettbewerb der EU und deswegen mit immer neuen Milliardenpaketen alimentiert werden musste?

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Russia stages massive surprise war games on Black Sea

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Large-scale military exercises of the Russian Black Sea Fleet

A ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet during large-scale military exercises Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered while flying back from the South African Republic to Moscow. (Screen shot of a video of Zvezda TV channel). (RIA Novosti). Via RT

Russia stages massive surprise war games on Black Sea

RT, 28 March, 2013

The Russian Navy in the Black Sea was ordered to conduct unscheduled drills early this morning. The naval training put in motion dozens of warships, military aircraft and armored vehicles, and thousands of marines.

The drills started early in the morning, when President Vladimir Putin, who was returning from Durban, South Africa, to Sochi aboard Air Force One, ordered Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu to alert the Black Sea fleet, as well as the regional Air Force and troops.

Shoigu opened an envelope delivered to him at 4:00am Moscow time, and only then learned of the planned war games.

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The drone mania

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When the Whole World Has Drones

The precedents the U.S. has set for robotic warfare may have fearsome consequences as other countries catch up

This article appeared in print as Standard Deviation

Kristin Roberts, National Journal, 22 March, 2013

[An interview with the author]

A slim aircraft glided through Israeli airspace, maintaining low altitude and taking a winding path to avoid detection. It flew over sensitive military installations and was beginning its approach to the Dimona nuclear reactor when it was blown from the sky by the Israel Defense Forces. The plane was pilotless, directed by agents elsewhere, and had been attempting to relay images back home. Whether they were successfully transmitted, Israelis won’t say, perhaps because they don’t know. But here’s what’s certain: It wasn’t American. It wasn’t Russian or Chinese. It was an Iranian drone, assembled in Lebanon and flown by Hezbollah.

The proliferation of drone technology has moved well beyond the control of the United States government and its closest allies. The aircraft are too easy to obtain, with barriers to entry on the production side crumbling too quickly to place limits on the spread of a technology that promises to transform warfare on a global scale. Already, more than 75 countries have remote piloted aircraft. More than 50 nations are building a total of nearly a thousand types. At its last display at a trade show in Beijing, China showed off 25 different unmanned aerial vehicles. Not toys or models, but real flying machines.

It’s a classic and common phase in the life cycle of a military innovation: An advanced country and its weapons developers create a tool, and then others learn how to make their own. But what makes this case rare, and dangerous, is the powerful combination of efficiency and lethality spreading in an environment lacking internationally accepted guidelines on legitimate use. This technology is snowballing through a global arena where the main precedent for its application is the one set by the United States; it’s a precedent Washington does not want anyone following.

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