International politics as one may imagine includes foreign affairs. This is why the topic and focus of this paper revolves around the current event within Eastern Europe. It will focus on both Russia, Ukraine, and the world, and from it, it will be analyzed by using the resources provided within class. After all it is a International Politics course, and one of the best ways to effectively put the skills and knowledge to use is to focus on an event or current event. The paper will attempt to go over in a chronological order of the events that has happened, and what is happening currently over in Ukraine. Afterwards, an analyzed input will be implemented providing reasoning behind Russia's actions, and actions of the world, and potentially some solutions. To begin with, it is very important to bring up media bias and the news representations of war. As some may know, "during times of war when the government puts pressure on the media to support its pro-war stance and help to mobilize public support in their readers, viewers, and listeners. (Edkins, Zehfuss 157, 158). This phrase is essentially explaining that the news media many of the times will present a biased opinion for their government during times of war, but in this case an escalated crisis within Ukraine, where the actions and risks are still being considered by all countries. Why this is important to bring up, is because this paper may contain several news articles sources from such countries that may present a biased opinion against Ukraine and Russia. However, this will not necessarily sway the momentum of the paper to provide an anti-Russian perspective. That is not the point of the paper. It is still very possible for the media to argue against the media bias of the... ... middle of paper ... ...h case the government will be more inclined to respond to it because of this (Robinson 1-2). With Crimea now part of Russia, perhaps the people of Ukraine can have some self-determined actions. Works Cited "Berkut Burns from Cocktail Molotov." YouTube. YouTube, 21 Jan. 2014. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. Edkins, Jenny, and Maja Zehfuss. Global Politics: A New Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2009. Print. Piers Robinson: The CNN Effect: The Myth of News, Foreign Policy, and Intervention, (London: Routledge, 2002), pp.7-24. "The European Elections Monitor." Viktor Yanukovych Winner of the Presidential Election in Ukraine. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. "Revolution in Ukraine. Riot Police Snipers Shoot Civil Protesters." YouTube. YouTube, 23 Feb. 2014. Web. 18 Mar. 2014. "Timeline of Key Events in Ukraine Protests." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2014.
Up until 1954, Ukraine was a crucial and highly profitable member of the USSR. Strategically placed between Russia and the rest of Europe, Ukraine contains many valuable natural gas pipelines. Crimea is autonomously governed peninsula owned by Ukraine, about two and a half time the sizes of the Island of Hawaii. There are roughly twice as many ethnic Russians as there are Ukrainians and the majority feel closer ties to Russia [1]. Anti-government protests turned violent and in late February, the Ukrainian government fired on protestors, killing dozens and wounding hundreds [2]. On March 6th, the leaders of Crimea stated that they intended to join Russia and are planning a vote on March 16th [3].
Frieden, Jeffry A., David A. Lake, and Kenneth A. Schultz. World Politics. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. Print.
Olga Rudenko, Special for USA TODAY. "Russia Cranks out Propaganda as Militants Hang on in Ukraine." USA Today. Gannett, 30 Apr. 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
The big crisis in Ukraine is starting to get out of hand. The government cannot even figure out what to do, and is getting kicked out of office. There are street protests happening all over Ukraine especially at Kyiv’s Independence Square. There is civil unrest against Yanukovych because he did not do what the people wanted to have. After everything is starting to cool down, Russian troops start to enter the country. The crisis was getting so far out of hand that the US and the EU had to figure out how to help, so they got involved in the crisis. The Ukraine conflict was triggered by Yanukovych declining the EU deal, and when everything was getting settled down in Ukraine, Russia invades Ukraine.
In March of 2014 Russia invaded Ukraine, unleashing a maddening flurry of concern across the world. Originally the concern was how to defend Crimea Ukraine from Putin’s forces, however, the concern has since changed. Seemingly overnight, Putin managed to worm his troops into Crimea, and dominate part of Ukraine. But where does this expansion of power end? Trying to delegate and monitor a power-hungry politician is now the focus of nearly every government in the Western world. In an article written by The Guardian’s Ian Traynor, it states that Putin has declared that if he wanted to, “Russian forces could conquer Ukrainian capital in two weeks.” This amount of confidence is highly unnerving considering Russia’s track record on simply showing up and invading a country seemingly out of nowhere. That specific action and behavior has been associated with Russian leader Joseph Stalin during the Cold war, and now is a continuous and growing concern with Vladimir Putin.
When the US initiated the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it gave the justification that the Iraqi dictator, Saddam aided the perpetrators of the September 11 attack on United States soil. The Bush administration also accused Saddam of engineering a nuclear program and amassing destructive weapons. All the US justification and the entire war have been highly criticized on many fronts. The media has taken the lead on shaping public opinion on both sides of the war, that is, the US or rather North America and the Middle East. It is a fact that citizens get to understand an issue such as the Iraq war through the perspective of the media (Al-Rawi, 2013). This paper focuses on the media, its portrayal of the war and the effect of its perspective.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Shiraev, Eric B., and Vladislav M. Zubok. International Relations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Silver, Larry.
Snyder, Timothy. "Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda." NYRblog. The New York Review of Books, 01 Mar. 2014. Web. 02 Mar. 2014.
The relationship between Russia and the rest of Europe has been extremely precarious throughout its existence. From looking to Europe for guidance to outright opposing the interests of Europe, the stance towards Europe has varied greatly. In the post-Cold War era, Russia’s policies have been formed in an attempt to reclaim control over their former sphere of influence, often clashing with European interests in regards to economic, energy, and security matters facing the world.
I’m a frequent traveler. When doing regular traveling one gets to compare and contrast different cultures on regular basis. Most of these comparisons include foods, clothes or simple social attributes. Lately however I have to come to realize a sharp and quite disturbing difference in US media. Whenever I have the chance to compare news coverage in the middle-east I find myself confused and parted. I often find American news coverage, TV and newspapers alike, being bias, especially those covering problems in the Israeli/Palestine conflict. It seems as if I am watching two different wars. In America I am watching a stronghold power, Israel, fighting the endless terrorism brought by Palestinians. In Europe I see a war between two nations in despair thoroughly trying to fight terror from both sides of the conflict. I consistently find myself questioning American newspapers, as they use overly strong terminology and definitions on top of puzzling omission of essential facts. This paper was made to research and analyze the cause of my questioning while comparing these causes to Europe in order to see if my questioning is justified. I found that because of small groups with pro-Israeli interests dictating this country, U.S government has a need to manipulate and slant media in order to get accord for their action. The questionable U.S actions include extremely imbalanced aid to the Middle/East conflict, favoring Israel. However, before I could draw any conclusion of a U.S bias I had to analyze whether my accusations for U.S media bias was justified. The manipulation becomes quite evident if one analyzes seven common violations of objective journalism: selective omission, misleading definitions and terminology, imbalanced reporting, opin...
Before the Ukraine crisis even started, Russia and Ukraine have had an on-going history for over 1000 years. The relationship between these two countries has had its ups and downs including the recent bloodshed where several pro-Russian militants were killed by Ukrainian military forces. Clearly, the crisis is reaching a level of tension and violence it hasn't experienced in decades. As the world debates the fate of the Ukraine, one of the central questions seems to be, “While the Ukraine has had close ties to Russia for centuries, why does Russia now feel justified in taking over entire sections of the Ukraine, like Crimea?” Again, it starts with the fact that these two co...
Because of this, President Yanukovych wanted to establish closer relationship with the European Union (EU) and Russia in order to attract the money necessary to maintain Ukraine's standard of living without affecting the Ukrainian population significantly.... ... middle of paper ... ... I myself think its nice for the president to team up and try to help bring this currently on going crisis to an end for the sake of the innocent victims that are surrounded by this catastrophe but if the people of Crimea want to be apart of Russia then who does the EU and Obama think they are to try and control that. Yes there are some rules that have been broken but if there is a way for them to do it the legal way then why not.
In order to realize the United States’ role in both provoking and pacifying the Ukrainian conflict, we will first look at the contemporary contextual circumstances leading to Ukraine’s status quo woes. Then, we will look at how our government’s doctrine of “Diplomacy, Development,
The Chechen-Russian conflict has spanned a great deal of years. With both sides losing a great deal of casualties. The escalation of events has had many repercussions and impacts on not only on the domestic Russian community, but also on the international community as a whole. This essay will argue that the reasons for both the first and second Chechen war are intertwined in that the whole conflict has turned into a so far unwinnable game of cat and mouse between Russia and Chechnya. While the reasons for the first conflict obviously catalyzed and opened the way for the second conflict, both of the wars can be seen in the same light in that they stemmed from the same origins, including resentment of legitimacy, incompetent political leadership, and extreme conditions in Chechnya. I will additionally consider alternative explanations, such as the rise of radical Islam in post 1996 Chechnya and how it led to and exacerbated the causes of the second war to differ from the first.
The Ukrainian crisis was a result of social upheaval against the former president, Mr. Yanukovich, who decided to pull out of the association with the European Union (BBC News, 2014). The upheaval that lasted for about two months resulted in more than 100 people killed (NY Times, 2014). In February 22 Mr. Yanukovich disappears and the opposition takes control over the government in Ukraine (BBC News, 2014). Upon learning that Mr. Yanukovich is currently residing in Kazakhstan, the new government of Ukraine requests from Kazakhstan the extradition of the overthrown president, who is accused of crime against the Ukrainian citizenry.