Summary
Political crisis in Ukraine has been dubbed as the biggest confrontation between the East and the West since the end of the Cold War. As the Crimean peninsula of Ukraine was annexed by the Russian Federation, the escalation of the current crisis is increasingly probable. While pro-Russian demonstrators are protesting in the eastern Ukraine, especially in Luhansk and Donetsk, approximately 40,000 Russian troops are amassed close to the Ukrainian border. Despite numerous attempts from the European Union (EU) and the United States to deescalate the crisis, the problem is still imminent and Crimea is still annexed. Since Russia is “one of the world’s major oil producers (ranking 7th in terms of its proven reserves) and the country possesses by far the largest natural gas reserves (with more than 20 percent of world proven reserves)” (Schmidt-Felzmann, 2011, p. 575), the West faces huge challenges in confronting its geopolitical power. The current policy of the West is extremely dangerous for Post-Soviet states who seek to inherit western ideologies and refuse to be influenced by Moscow. In order to tackle the Crimean crisis, challenge Russia, and overcome the economic challenges of Ukraine, new polices should be measured and established. Accordingly, the West should consider the following recommendations:
• Construct a new Gas pipeline in order to challenge Russian state-owned Gazprom and hence reduce the dependability of EU and Ukraine on Russia. The European Union should consider alternative gas pipelines like the Nabucco project and import natural gas via Southern Gas Corridor as well from the United States.
• Impose much stricter economic and political sanctions against Russia. As demonstrated by the Crimean Crisis and ...
... middle of paper ...
...stern response. Central Asian Survey,
30(2), 197-211. doi:10.1080/02634937.2011.570121
Diuk, N. (2014). Euromaidan. World Affairs, 176(6), 9-16.
Engelhart, K. (2014). How the West can win Ukraine. Maclean's, 127(13/14), 36-38.
Finon, D. (2011). The EU foreign gas policy of transit corridors: autopsy of the stillborn
Nabucco project. OPEC Energy Review, 35(1), 47-69. doi:10.1111/j.1753-0237.2010.00185.x
How to Sanction Russia. (2014, March 19). Retrieved April 6, 2014, from http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/141043/lee-s-wolosky/how-to-sanction-russia Llana, S. (2014, March 4). Ukraine's other crisis: an economy in freefall. Christian Science
Monitor. p. N.PAG.
Schmidt-Felzmann, A. (2011). EU Member States' Energy Relations with Russia: Conflicting
Approaches to Securing Natural Gas Supplies. Geopolitics, 16(3), 574-599. doi:10.1080/14650045.2011.520864
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.
In a recent White House brief, President Obama called the Russian invasion of Crimea a clear violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and international law. When assessing the Russo-Ukrainian crises in Crimea, the commander of European Command (EUCOM) and the Supreme Allied Commander of European Forces (SACUER) must account for U.S. interests in the region before deciding a proper course of action. This essay aims to assess four of the United States’ national interests through the perspective of EUCOM and SACUER. The first section will outline the role of EUCOM and SACUER in the European region and assess the overall problem of Russia invading Crimea. The second section will outline four of the United States’ national interests at stake: international order, trade and economic prosperity, energy supply, and freedom of the seas. In doing so, this assessment of U.S. interests in Crimea supports the options of non-intervention and a non-provocative stance in order to maintain long-term stability because the Russian invasion has only violated peripheral interests of EUCOM and SACUER.
[2] Weaver, Matthew. "Ukraine Crisis." The Guardian. N.p., 20 Feb. 2014. Web. 7 Mar. 2014. .
He wanted to cut taxes and increase defense spending. He felt that the United States of America should take a confrontational approach towards Russia.3 Mikhail Gorbachev was the leader of Russia in 1985. He wanted to improve. the Russian economy. He also wanted to improve relations with the United States.
The information war between the West and Russia had intensified once again and reached levels higher than the levels of Russo-Georgia war (2008). Russian media naturally is defending its annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol as a democratic referendum and justifying the military intervention as the protection of rights of the Russian population of Crimea. The referendum was very controversial since it had an unusually high voter turnout and the Pro-Russian vote has created speculations that the referendum has been falsified by the Russian government. The Western media condemns Russia for the anne...
invade Ukraine. After all, what have Ukrainians been fighting for more than two hundred years?
middle of paper ... ... After everything was dying down, Russia invaded Ukraine, and they started to get Ukraine back on track to what Russia wants them to be. Everything then again gets way out of control, and Ukraine is still today very out of control, and all the people want Russia out of their country, but they do not want to attack because Russia is their main power source. Works Cited Crowley, Michael and Shuster, Simon.
what must we do? Well for starters why not try to teach our children better and
Both the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) and the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) are strategies developed by the European Union in regards to their dealings with the ‘outside’ world. The European Neighborhood Policy finds its obstacles in the once superpower of the Russians, and their conflicting neighborhood policy. Whereas the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy finds its obstacles through its numerous memberships which on the outside one would consider a boon of combined knowledge, but when their insurmountable differences become involved it is a burden. The European Union unfortunately has become known for being a hypocritical organization, playing the mantra ‘do as I say not as I do’. Moreover, the European Union takes its power for granted and assumes “itself as a superior embodiment of soft power and a model of peace, democracy and prosperity in the region.” After the Cold War, the EU set out to develop a new phase of expansion and integration. One of the topics related to the process of European Union integration is the concern of a European Identity, and what it means to be ‘European’. The EU has struggled to define itself as a “Multicultural community sharing a set of universal values” , conversely defining what it means by ‘multiculturalism’ has become the center of political conflict within its governments. The conundrum may be if the European Union wants to keep the European feeling, then why should it bring in a country that is not European? But then again what is European? The debate over this term is one that surrounds the history of Europe and the possible futures available for the European Union. Is the EU or any nations allowed within it defined by the geographic constructs shown on th...
...: Reassessing Legitimacy in the European Union. Journal of Common Market Studies, 40 (4), pp. 603-24.
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe, that borders Russia north and northeast. Lately Ukraine has been making international headlines; the country is in complete and total turmoil or for lack of better words a crisis. What started as a request from the Ukrainian citizens for a change in government, limit the powers of the president, restore the country constitution back to its original form from 2004-2010, and get closer ties to the EU. Peaceful protesting turned in to a nightmare, when the then president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych failed to make good on his word. Instead, he made a deal with Russian president and late sought refuge in Russia. A few weeks later, he was ousted from this prompted the Ukraine revolution and the annexation of Crimea also known as the Crimean crisis. A revolution in Ukraine took place in February 2014 for a period of 5 days in Kiev the capital of Ukraine, after a series of violent events in the capital culminated with the ousting of the then-President of Ukraine. Immediately following the ousting of Yanukovych, immediate changes took place in Ukraine’s sociopolitical system. Starting with the a new interim government being installed and the constitution was restored to its original state, and plans to hold impromptu presidential elections in the months to follow. Before the revolution, Ukraine had been sunken by years of corruption, mismanagement, lack of growth economically , their currency value had dropped , and they had the inability to secure funding from public markets. 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 a...
Thomas Jr., L. (2011, September 19). Greece Nears the Precipice, Raising Fear. The New York Times. Retrieved on February 10, 2013 from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/business/global/as-greece-struggles-the-world-imagines-a-default.html?pagewanted=all
The conflict between the Ukraine and Russia is the Ukraine's most long-standing and deadly crisis; since its post-Soviet independence began as a protest against the government dropping plans to forge closer trade ties with the European Union. The conflict between Russia and the Ukraine stems from more than twenty years of weak governance, the government’s inability to promote a coherent executive branch policy, an economy dominated by oligarchs and rife with corruption, heavy reliance on Russia, and distinct differences between Ukraine's population from both Eastern and Western regions in terms of linguistics, religion and ethnicity (Lucas 2009).
Murphy, A.B. 2006. ‘The May 2004 Enlargement of the European Union: View from Two Years Out’. Eurasian Geography and Economics. Vol. 47 (6). Pp 635-646.
In February 2014, the international community witnessed a turn for the worse in the Ukrainian political crisis. Protests in Kiev turned violent and deadly and President Viktor Yanukovych was impeached merely hours after fleeing the country. While Ukraine’s parliament sought a new speaker and formed an interim government, rallies in the disputed territory Crimea quickly gained momentum. Ukraine is on the brink of its law and order completely breaking down, and the United Nations and other world powers are unsure of how to react or handle the situation (Al Jazeera, 2014).