"In the first paper, US Policy Towards Secession In The Balkans And Effectiveness Of De Facto Partition, Evelyn Farkas addresses inherently non-military contextual challenges encountered by military forces during NATO efforts to make or enforce peace in Bosnia and Kosovo. She highlights significant problems that have emerged in both former Yugoslavian states; namely, that the initial progress towards establishing stable multiethnic states has been stalled by criminal networks and the lack of functioning central governments. She concludes that civil and military peace implementers must be more aggressive in administering the protectorates NATO has established in order to advance the political and economic reforms that are needed to achieve a lasting peace. Her efforts help to detail the struggle of institution-building that accompanies peace enforcement and peacekeeping efforts."--INSS website.
Armed conflict on the territory of the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 2001 claimed over 200,000 lives, gave rise to atrocities unseen in Europe since the Second World War, and left behind a terrible legacy of physical ruin and psychological devastation. Unfolding against the background of the end of cold war bipolarity, the new Balkan wars sounded a discordant counterpoint to efforts to construct a more harmonious European order, were a major embarrassment for the international institutions deemed responsible for conflict management, and became a preoccupation for the powers concerned with restoring regional stability. After more than a decade of intermittent hostilities the conflict has been contained, but only as a result of significant external interventions and the establishment of a series of de facto international protectorates, patrolled by UN, NATO, and EU sponsored peacekeepers with open-ended mandates.
From Kurdistan to Somaliland, Xinjiang to South Yemen, all secessionist movements hope to secure newly independent states of their own. Most will not prevail. The existing scholarly wisdom provides one explanation for success, based on authority and control within the nascent states. With the aid of an expansive new dataset and detailed case studies, this book provides an alternative account. It argues that the strongest members of the international community have a decisive influence over whether today's secessionists become countries tomorrow and that, most often, their support is conditioned on parochial political considerations.
"There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of one's native land." --Euripides The Yugoslav tragedy is a story about crimes committed with extraordinary boldness and deception, propagated by the politicians and by the media from both inside, and outside, the former Yugoslavia. This mixture, at the heart of the conflict, provoked the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in Europe since World War II. Written in memory to a lost homeland, to the people who died, and to the people who survived--especially the refugees, displaced internally or dispersed throughout the world--this book is a powerful commentary on war itself that provides insight into the roles that history, ethnic nationalism, and religious differences can play in modern conflict. "A finely crafted historical dialectics that refuses to give into dualist explanations about 'the crimes' and eventually the death of the former Republic of Yugoslavia, as resulting from either 'bad' primordial ancient hatreds and ethnic nationalism, or from the lack of some civic nationalism in the form of 'good' but artificially constructed communities. The author follows Hannah Arendt in charting the history of a long century of 'statelessness, rightlessness and homelessness' in the region brought on by externally imposed balkanization. Every step of the way we are warned against those who preach the purity of ethnos over demos, or conversely, those who seek the bureaucratic disconnection of ethnos from demos as an ideal solution." --Greg M. Nielsen, Concordia University, author of The Norms of Answerability: Social Theory Between Bakhtin and Habermas "The strength of Ljubisic's work is the seamless way it moves from one level to another, first analyzing events in the former Yugoslavia at the level of state politics, then shifting to a discussion of the international context, and finally, and most importantly, describing the impacts of these events at the individual level. In the process, she provides a comprehensive analysis of these confusing events and a much needed contribution to the literature. This is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the recent history of the Balkan region." --Neil Gerlach, Carelton University, author of The Genetic Imaginary: DNA in the Canadian Criminal Justice System Table of Contents INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE: Theories of the Nation and Nationalism Nationalism and Multiculturalism The Origins of the Nation Primordial Versus Imagined Community Summary CHAPTER TWO: The National Question in Yugoslavia The Yugoslav Idea Viability of Yugoslavia and the Avoidable War Summary CHAPTER THREE: 'Divide and Rule' Politics of External Balkanization The Old World Orders in the Balkans Yugoslavia and the New World Order Summary CHAPTER FOUR: Ethnic Cleansing in Multinational Yugoslavia 'Purification' of Heterogeneous Territories Multiethnic Resistance to the War Summary CHAPTER FIVE: Stateless Peoples Totalitarian Solutions Hundred Years of Statelessness Rebuilding Home in Multicultural Montreal Obstacles to Integration Summary CONCLUSION Bibliography Index DAVORKA LJUBISIC holds a BA from the University of Ljubljana, in Slovenia and an MA from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. She was born in Zagreb, Croatia--at the time one of six constitutive republics of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Unable to live according to the agenda of 'newprimitivism' and a politics of sorrow, in 1995 she immigrated to Canada. 224 pages, 6x9, index, bibliography, maps
The post-World War II occupations of Germany and Japan set standards for postconflict nation-building that have not since been matched. Only in recent years has the United States has felt the need to participate in similar transformations, but it is now facing one of the most challenging prospects since the 1940s: Iraq. The authors review seven case studies--Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan--and seek lessons about what worked well and what did not. Then, they examine the Iraq situation in light of these lessons. Success in Iraq will require an extensive commitment of financial, military, and political resources for a long time. The United States cannot afford to contemplate early exit strategies and cannot afford to leave the job half completed.
Bestselling author and eminent foreign policy scholar Zbigniew Brzezinski's classic book on American's strategic mission in the modern world. In The Grand Chessboard, renowned geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski delivers a brutally honest and provocative vision for American preeminence in the twenty-first century. The task facing the United States, he argues, is to become the sole political arbiter in Eurasian lands and to prevent the emergence of any rival power threatening our material and diplomatic interests. The Eurasian landmass, home to the greatest part of the globe's population, natural resources, and economic activity, is the "grand chessboard" on which America's supremacy will be ratified and challenged in the years to come. In this landmark work of public policy and political science, Brzezinski outlines a groundbreaking and powerful blueprint for America's vital interests in the modern world. In this revised edition, Brzezinski addresses recent global developments including the war in Ukraine, the re-emergence of Russia, and the rise of China.
