War in Ukraine

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shaken up the academic world. Universities in Ukraine have been bombed and academic staff and students have been killed and injured and many professors and students have fled the country. Institutions especially in Europe are trying to help the academic world in Ukraine and refugee professors and students are helped so that they... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Following the Second World War, the international community was reinvigorated to design an international body with the capability to limit the onset of another world war. Enshrined in the United Nations (UN) Charter was the vision for the organization to be “a guardian of international peace and security, as a promoter of human rights, as a protector of international... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The accelerating pace of change and even the near-term unpredictability of its consequences calls for more enlightened and timely analyses of the most globally disruptive events. The continuing war for Ukraine is indisputably such an event. This essay presents an academically unconventional assessment of what that war means, addressing its consequences in terms of... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract This paper argues that science has not been very successful in preventing wars between nations, but may play a significant role in re-building a country or region after devastations from a military conflict. This is illustrated by the case of Ukraine. The specific potential contribution of regional science to the country’s recovery process is highlighted (a ‘phoenix... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The goal of this paper is to focus on learning major divergences for understanding global human security and modern world order in the 21st century, with the strategic perspective of an integrated approach for peace and economy, considering current events. No global structure of peace can be stable and secure unless all parties recognize others’ legitimate security... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Both democracy (nowadays known as “global democracy”) and war are examples of complexity. Simplification and closing-off (isolation) will never accomplish anything when dealing with either of these kinds of complexity. We have taken for granted that aggression, invasion and war are by definition immoral and illegal and that it is always necessary to distinguish... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The article raises some fundamental questions concerning the Ukraine-Russia war: why is the UN not intervening to bring peace? What does the West want? These are all questions that we should be asking urgently, but don’t. How is the war going to end in Ukraine, and what exactly does the West want in Ukraine? The question, while the fiercest war since the end of WWII... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract As the Russia-Ukraine war continues spreading human misery in its wake, more and more countries are being impacted directly or indirectly by it, bringing the world perilously close to a 1960s like Cold War scenario. As the world becomes divided once again, it is time for the Non-Aligned Movement to take its place in the world again. The Movement was founded to... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The current Russia-Ukraine military conflict reveals how the laws established by the United Nations to guide “war behavior” need to be realistically reconsidered in light of the changes since WWII that now characterize military conflicts. Today dominant nations circumvent rules of engagement by resorting to new tactics. It also unmasks a prevalent “global dominance... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The extreme dangers of nuclear war are discussed against the background of Russia’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine, during which Vladimir Putin put Russia’s nuclear weapons on high alert. It is recommended that the United States and its allies should stop sending arms to Ukraine, that they should halt the eastward expansion of NATO, and that they should... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract When we view the world from above, can the Ukraine crisis be seen as the beginning of a grand opening and synthesis towards a world unified through collaboration? We are in the aftermath of the pandemic, faced with an increasing worldwide poverty through exploding energy and food prices and the accelerating climate disasters and have to wonder whether a viable future... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The war on Ukraine is a wake-up call. Not because not all wars are atrocities that steal lives and future. It is a wake-up call, because it so bluntly reveals the violent perpetuation of a dominance model that has held human evolution captive for 6000 years. The article looks at the underlying pattern that creates, keeps and recreates structures that give rise to mad... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Globalization was challenged by the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced the European Union to acknowledge its limitations on many fronts, from access to raw materials to manufacturing, and from control of data to innovation in general. The ongoing geopolitical situation, which promises to be a game-changer for years to come, only reinforced the... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Economic Sanctions are being deployed by the West in the Russia-Ukraine conflict at a level never before attempted with the intention of wrecking the Russian economy. Very little attention is given to the dismal record of sanctions or the consequences of sanctions on civilians, mercantile enterprises, global and regional economies, and the economies of countries... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract This paper makes the case for why we believe that the Russia-Ukraine crisis signals the end of a global era defined by globalisation. Even though Russia’s economy is only a fraction of the US, EU or China, its role in the world is much more relevant and the events in Ukraine are triggering a cascade of effects that will redefine the political, social and economic... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract War is the ultimate expression of polarization. It instantly invokes in all of us the binary divide of life and death. Being supportive of the victims of aggression is a humane mandate. At the same time, the active engagement in the binary logic of war prevents us from recognizing the systemic and violent nature of modern international relations. If we intend to end... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Note This article is a reproduction of the keynote address by Harlan Cleveland at the William G. McGowan Theatre on October 21, 2006 in the National Archives and Record Administration at https://www.archives.gov/research/foreign-policy/cold-war/symposium/cleveland.html I am not a historian, so don’t look for dispassionate recording of the Cold War in what follows. I was of... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF “There is no challenge beyond the reach of the creative capacity of human beings”. – John F. Kennedy, 1963 Abstract The transition to the future we long for requires moving from imposition to discussion, from power to word, from the use of weapons to mediation. And to reduce or, at least, cease to increase the arsenals of bombs, allocating all necessary... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has shaken the post-war liberal order, originally designed to prevent war in Europe and between advanced industrialised countries. While the mechanisms to avoid drawing neighbouring countries (and their allies) into the conflict appear to be holding, the risk of further escalation between Russia and NATO remains considerable. With... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract It was a newspaper cartoon that inspired this text, in particular the reflection it carried on the relations between Russia and NATO: what seems unthinkable today was thought yesterday and could be made possible tomorrow. Hence this question: Russia in NATO, thinking the unthinkable. With the dual perspective of a historian, trained in the history of Russia, and a... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract This paper seeks to look beyond the sense of justifiable outrage and horror over the events still unfolding as a result of the war in Ukraine to examine the root causes of the current conflict and the essential issues that need to be addressed in order to end and prevent its recurrence. It challenges simplistic assumptions underlying the sense of pessimism,... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Human Security is the conceptual framework through which multilateral cooperation and common security amongst nations, which is now necessary, can be achieved. The article argues that the concept of human security has not reached its potential to catalyse progress yet. Human Security focuses on people-centered and context-specific responses to challenges. Several... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF This article addresses a great many points of importance related to the war in Ukraine, especially the need for negotiations and the role of the UN in peacekeeping, which no one seems to be thinking about. It offers a balanced view that shifts the focus from moral outrage shouted from every rooftop (on both sides) to a reference to root causes, missed opportunities and... Read more

Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Russian invasion of Ukraine goes much further than phantom pains of Russia’s imperial dreams. This unfolding confrontation must be understood as a major clash in the rising strategic competition to determine the future architecture of the world order and the European security system. To analyse the essence of this aggression, one should not succumb to the temptations... Read more