LOCAL WARS CANNOT DRAG ON ENDLESSLY AND MAY RESULT IN EXTENSIVE MILITARY OPERATIONS EMBRACING ENTIRE REGIONS

PanARMENIAN.Net
23.12.2008 GMT+04:00

The search of alternative energy supplies and recession may lead to
radical changes in the world political map, including emergence of new
super-states. As a matter of fact, they have already appeared; they are
China and India, and both the USA and RF will have to reckon with them.

The current year marked the beginning of establishing new world
principles and new geopolitical lines that used to seem quite unlikely
till recently. Europe, as well as the rest of the world were in static
position after the World War II, the result of which was the borders
outlined in Potsdam and finally fixed at Helsinki summit in 1975.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Architects of the present world structure, USSR, USA
and Great Britain, most likely were in no doubt about the stability
of the arbitrarily fixed borders between states, that was why the
principle of territorial integrity was silently accepted by dominant
states, where old conflicts were still smoldering. The world powers,
however, could not have foreseen one nuance – the collapse of the USSR
and emergence of new "independent" republics that quickly became UNO
members in order to consolidate the administrative-territorial borders
of the former Union. However, even the UNO membership could not guard
certain republics against ethnic conflicts and the world against the
approaching perestroika. It is quite natural that the Balkans should
remain the hottest spot, where the conflict among Balkan nations
arose still at the times of the Ottoman Empire. Neither the First
nor the Second World War was able to reconcile the Bosnians, Serbs,
Croats and Albanians. From this point of view the totalitarian regime
was unique in radically wiping out separatist views. It worked in
the USSR and it worked in Yugoslavia. The 21st century, however,
did not bring peace; moreover, it completed the list of conflict
zones with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Pacific states. The
most interesting point here is that in any spot of the world where
the American forces appear with the alleged aim to solve conflicts,
the latter hastily grow even deeper. Of course, struggle against
terrorism and illegal narco-business, possession of oil supplies in
the Middle East are very important but, for some reason, the result
is always the same: collapse of the country, crisis in just another
marionette country, and, consequently, a rapidly growing gap between
developing and backward countries.

Russia’s methods are almost identical with those of the USA. In an
attempt to return the whole Caucasus, Russia revoked the two Chechen
wars, as well as the Georgian-Abkhazian war in 1991 and played a
reprehensible role in the primary stage of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict, helping the Azerbaijani Emergency Platoon to conduct the
operation "Ring", the result of which was the cleansing of Armenians
from lowland Karabakh.

However, sooner or later all these conflicts have an effect on the
world powers themselves. And who knows what bred the world crisis? The
means used up by both Russia and the USA on arms and support of puppet
regimes could not but affect the world economy.

Recurring to the Helsinki Act, we should note that in essence its
signing served as a bomb in a delayed action, as it is impossible to
adopt two mutually exclusive principles or give preference to either
of them. The right of nations cannot be secondary, but the problem of
territorial integrity is very often disputed, especially since mother
countries cannot simply eliminate the empire complex and neither
can they imagine part of "their" territory torn away. The danger is
that local wars cannot drag on endlessly and may result in extensive
military operations embracing entire regions, like it is now in the
Middle East or in Central Asia. In 80s there was defined a certain
"arch of instability", which comprised Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Iran,
Afghanistan, the republics of Central Asia, Pakistan, India – actually
half of the Islamic World. It should also be noted that world oil and
gas reserves are all concentrated on this ‘arch’ and it is exactly
through it that opium from Afghanistan goes to other countries.

The search of alternative energy supplies and recession may lead to
radical changes in the world political map, including emergence of new
super-states. As a matter of fact, they have already appeared; they are
China and India, which both the USA and RF will have to reckon with.