Monday, 07 October 2024

E Editorial

Perilous uncertainty

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The ongoing war in Ukraine has a wide impact in its neighborhood and beyond and is also a historic turning point marking a new world order. The war in Syria started hitherto may be seen as a prelude to it, followed by the Russia-Ukraine or, as it is often called, the Russia-Collective West war. Unfortunately, in addition to the ongoing conflicts in those two regions, the grand “chessboard” may be expanded to the South Caucasus, with the involvement of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, and this list of players is not complete yet.

Such large-scale and long-lasting wars waged between superpowers may imply the changing balance of powers, and accordingly, it is necessary to convene a large Peace Conference based on new rules for the establishment of a new geopolitical balance, i.e. new world order.

What is happening now in Ukraine and what happened in Syria are comparable to the Thirty Years' War between Catholics and Protestants ranged from 1618 to 1648 in Central Europe, mainly in the territory of Germany. Many consider it to be the very first world war, since the data on human and economic losses, destruction, and material damage were terrifying, especially in the German countries, the Czech Republic, and a number of other cities and villages in Central Europe.

However, after that war, the so-called Westphalian world order was established, referring to the premise that each state possesses exclusive sovereignty over the territory that it controls and independently decides what religion to have, that is, freedom of religion. It was at that time that the concepts of coalitions of countries, the balance of power between them, the idea of ​​national states, etc. arose. They were the principles of the "new world order".

The established balance of power was later disrupted during Napoleon's conquests and a new balance of power was established at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Versailles and after the Second World War, the Yalta and Potsdam conferences were called for the wars of coalition states and the creation of new world orders.

If in the 17th century, the war was mainly waged in the territory of Germany, now it started first in Syria and then in Ukraine. It is believed that depending on the results of the war, a new world order based on new principles should be established in Europe and throughout the world. The danger of prolonging the Ukrainian war and spreading it to new territories is due to the problem of disagreement over those principles.

The war in Syria, which was the instigator of the balance of power in the Greater Middle East, was followed by the second war in the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, breaking the balance of power in the South Caucasus. There is an uncertain situation in our region now, and it is precisely because of this that the region has turned into a hot zone.

In this situation, the whole danger is the very existence of the inadequate government of Armenia, which is entangled in the mire of foreign political orientations and forcibly conducts situational politics, if it can be called politics in general. And the worst news is, although it is not news anymore that the entire political field of Armenia is in uncertainty today, including the opposition. Against the backdrop of the current geopolitical upheavals, this is an extremely dangerous uncertainty.

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The Armenian Center for National and International Studies

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