A reinvigorated anti-Taliban alliance?
Continue reading “Afghanistan – top-down modernisation and “realexistierende Governance””
Russia’s March into a Corner of its own chosing
Die Weltvernichtungsmachine aus Dr. Strangelove ist zurück
Aussichten auf einen möglichen Showdown mit einem Regime, das sich selbst um seines Erhaltes willen (nicht um den Erhalt des Staates oder des Landes willen) in eine Ecke manövriert hat:
Continue reading “Russia’s March into a Corner of its own chosing”
Violence and Latin America
Democracy and liberalism under pressure
Konflikt, Stabilität und und gesellschaftlicher Wandel: Was bringt externe Demokratieförderung?
OSCE implemented elections in Kosovo, 2001
Zwei Artikel im SPON führten unlängst zu hitzigen Kommentaren auf einer der Böll-Stiftung nahe stehenden Facebook-Seite:
The war in mind
I am increasingly interested in the radicalising views expressed in Russian mainstream media on the relationship between Russia and the “West”. According to some publically acceptable points of view are those who see Russia with its few remaining allies already engulfed in an existential struggle against facism and an imperialism of cultural decay.
Russia’s frustration with an incompatible political order
Looking eastwards into the rising sun from the Western capitals it seems that the Kremlin decided nearly single handily to depart from accepted formal (like respecting the sovereignty of states unless in defence or unless the UN rules otherwise) as well as informal (like not to justify armed intervention by protecting the interests of one’s own identity group in another country) rules of international relations.
Continue reading “Russia’s frustration with an incompatible political order”
Anhörung Auswärtiger Ausschuss Bundestag: Bilanz der Lage in Afghanistan April 2014 und Nachlese
Die Einschätzungen gingen tatsächlich sehr weit auseinander. Im Nachhinein ärgert man sich, nicht noch deutlicher gegen die zum Teil menschenverachtenden, Afghanistan zur Karikatur verzerrenden Allgemeinplätze angegangen zu sein….
Elections in a divided society and fragmenting state?
There are strong signs that Ukraine today is a divided society and a fragmented state. These divisions have not been invented or imposed by the enlargement policy of the EU or the forceful and decisive Russian reaction to this, however divisive those have been and still are.
Continue reading “Elections in a divided society and fragmenting state?”
What the “useful idiots” have in common
The motive behind Schmidts and Schröders support of Russia’s actions may be different in normative as well as political terms (given his age the former may be forgiven to argue as if the Soviet Union was still intact as a predictable adversary embedded in a stable bipolar international order and the latter may not be forgiven for his venal opportunism).