Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

The eastern portion of Europe and the end of WWI – The end of WWI resulted in significant changes concerning the political boundaries of Central, East, and South-East Europe. The extent of these changes resulted in regional wars over the land distribution in several mini-regions in the eastern portion of Europe, and it was to take around five to six years before new borders between the states were finally established and stabilized. This continued at least up to 1938.

The political transformation of the eastern portion of Europe after 1918 was a direct result of the collapse of both the German Second Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the last months of 1918, as well as due to unsettled western borders of the ex-Russian Empire (collapsed in 1917) which still was involved into the revolution and civil war. Most of the boundary changes in this half of Europe after WWI were direct result of decisions reached by the Entente powers (Allied and Associated Powers during WWI) at the Paris Peace Conference that began in early 1919. This resulted in five peace treaties, named after the castles outside Paris where they were been finally signed. Each of these peace treaties dealt in part, but in some cases entirely, with states in Central Europe. This was the case, for instance, for Poland which was already in the post-WWI military-political conflict with the West Ukrainian nationalists over the land of East Galicia.

The state borders of post-WWI Poland were decided by the Paris Peace Conference by three means: 1) Through decisions of the Council of Ambassadors; 2) Plebiscites held under Entente direction; and 3) By the result of the war between West Ukraine and Bolshevik Russia. Concerning Poland, the final settlement of its eastern borders became the most complex. In fact, the first boundary problem was Galicia, or more precisely East Galicia, where Poles went to open war with Ukrainians. On November 1st, 1918, when the rule of Austria-Hungary finally collapsed in the region, local Ukrainian nationalistic leaders proclaimed the independence of the West Ukrainian National (People’s) Republic. This new state claimed the whole of East Galicia (eastward from the San River with Lwiw) to be Ukrainian followed by North Bukowina and Carpathian Rus’. However, these territorial claims became immediately challenged by local Poles who fought all over Galicia to be united with the post-WWI Poland. Consequently, the result was a Polish-Ukrainian War that lasted from November 1918 until the summer of 1919, when the Galician-West Ukrainian military detachments were expelled from East Galicia which finally became a part of the interwar Poland.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

Introduction — This article deals with the question of political and human/minority rights in the region of Kosovo & Metohija twenty years after the „2004 March Pogrom“ and twenty-five years after NATO's military aggression on Serbia and Montenegro and occupation of the region. This research topic is important because this is the first time in European history, that a terrorist-style and mafia-ruled (quasi)independent state was created by a full diplomatic, political, economic, military, and financial sponsorship by the West under the umbrella of NATO's and the EU's protective administration. The precedence of Kosovo's self-proclaimed independence in February 2008 already had several negative „domino effect“ consequences elsewhere in Europe (the Caucasus, the Crimean Peninsula, the Donbas region...). The article aims to present the current situation in Kosovo & Metohija and the possible consequences of the Kosovo case for international relations and the post-Cold War 1.0 world order.

The NATO's intervention in 1999 and its consequences — Twenty years passed after the „2004 March Pogrom" in Kosovo & Metohija against the local Serbs was organized and perpetrated by Kosovo Albanians, led by the veterans from the Kosovo Liberation Army – the KLA and logistically supported by NATO's occupation troops in Kosovo & Metohija under the name of the Kosovo Forces – the KFOR. That was simply a continuation of the last stage (up till now) of the dismemberment of ex-Yugoslavia – the Kosovo War (1998-1999), and NATO's military intervention and aggression against Serbia and Montenegro. (At that time they composed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia the FRY.) This represented a violation of international law. In this context, we can say that at the end of the 20th century, the fate of ex-Yugoslavia was determined by several international organizations, and not decisively by the Yugoslavs themselves.

NATO's military intervention against the FRY in March-June of 1999 (led by the USA) under the pretext of protecting human rights in Kosovo (Albania), marked a crucial step toward finishing the process of creation of the global „Pax Americana" in the form of NATO's World Order, the NWO. As NATO used force against the FRY without permission from the UN Security Council, and also without an official proclamation of the war, we can call this military intervention pure „aggression" against a sovereign state, according to international rules and law. In the Balkans in the 1990s, NATO acquired not only considerable military experience but also had the opportunity to get rid of old weapons and use some new ones. NATO also managed to enhance its activities, and thus developed into a global organization.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

In 2009, Russian President Medvedev (President from May 7th, 2008 to May 7th, 2012) called for a new European security policy known as "Fourteen Points" as a new security treaty to be accepted to maintain European security as the ability of states and societies to maintain their independent identity and functional integrity (this Russian draft European security treaty was originally posted on the President's website on November 29th, 2009). This treaty proposal was passed to the leaders of the Euro-Atlantic States and the executive heads of the relevant international organizations such as NATO, EU, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), and the Organization of Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In this proposal, Russia stressed that it is open to any democratic proposal concerning continental security and is counting on a positive response from Russia's (Western) partners.

However, not so surprisingly, D. Medvedev's call for a new European security framework (based on mutual respect and equal rights) became interpreted particularly in the USA in the fashion of the Cold War 1.0, in fact, as a plot to pry Europe from its strategic partner (USA). Nevertheless, this program in the form of a proposal was the most significant initiative in IR by Russia since the dismissal of the USSR in 1991. From the present perspective, this proposal could save Ukrainian territorial integrity, but it was rejected primarily due to Washington's Russo-phobic attitude.

Moscow since 1991, and particularly since 2000, viewed NATO as a Cold War 1.0 remnant and the EU as no more but only as a common economic-financial market with many crisis management practices. Nevertheless, Medvedev's 2009 "Fourteen Points" was announced on November 29th, 2009, and Russia published a draft of a European Security Treaty. Medvedev's program resembles the program drawn up by US President Woodrow Wilson (issued on January 8th, 1918), who had emancipated peace aims in his well-known "Fourteen Points". These two programs have two things in common: 1) Both documents advocate multilateralism in the security area and devotion to international law, and 2) They are very idealistic in terms of the tools needed for their implementation.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

Zionism — The term Zionism is derived from the word Zion that in the Hebrew language and cultural-historical tradition of the Jews refers to the citadel (acropolis) of the city of Jerusalem as well as to the Kingdom of Heaven. From the matter of politics, Zionism refers to the political-national movement of the European Jews in the very late 19th century for the very purpose to re-create a Jewish homeland in the form of a nation-state in the Middle East – Israel.[i]

This Zionist movement was to a great extent expressed as a consequence of the European (mostly West European) anti-Semitic (better to say anti-Judaic) sentiments and politics that the (West) European Jews were experiencing for centuries.[ii] Zionism as a political-national movement was formally initiated by Theodor Herzl (1860−1904) at the World’s Zionist Conference in Basle (Switzerland) or the First World’s Zionist Congress held from August 29 to 31st, 1897 attended by 208 delegates and 26 representatives of the press.[iii]

Th. Herzl was born in Budapest. He was an assimilated Jew who became a journalist in Vienna and was the Paris correspondent of the newspaper Neue Freie Presse in 1891−1895. The Dreyfus Affair which started in December 1894 found his interest in anti-Semitism and how to solve the Jewish Question. He published the book in German Der Judenstaat in 1896 in which he claimed that the creation of the Jewish nation-state in Palestine can be the only effective response to centuries of European anti-Semitism. He devoted the rest of his life to the propagation and realization of this idea and for that purpose, he established the World’s Zionist Organization (the WZO), which was convened at the First World’s Zionist Congress in Switzerland in 1897.

From the end of the 19th century onward, (basically after 1897) there have been organized attempts to persuade the European Jews to emigrate to the Land of Israel or known as Palestine. However, it was not at first unquestioned that the Jewish nation-state had to be in Palestine exactly.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

The Middle East was the home of the earliest civilizations in the world’s history. The first urbanizations and literacy started there.

The region of the Middle East usually covers the territories from the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean Sea up to India in the East. In a broader sense, geographically, the region encompasses territories of the East Mediterranean and Central Asia but many Americans followed by other Western academicians, politicians, and journalists regard as a single region the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

The majority of the inhabitants of MENA have many things in common like the Arab language and culture, confession of Islam, etc.. Still, on the other, different ethnic minorities exist in each of those regional countries while the Islamic religion is divided into two factions: the Sunni (majority) and the Shia (minority).

All states of the region of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) can be selected into four ethnic-geographic sub-regions (groups):

   1) The North African states;
   2) The Persian Gulf States;
   3) The Central Arab states; and
   4) Iran and Israel.