BLOG: Georgia: the next Yugoslavia?

A military conflict has broken out in the European Neighbourhood, just across the Black Sea, on the European Union’s eastern frontier. The French Presidency of the Council of the European Union has issued a statement expressing its ‘grave concern’ over the situation, calling on the ‘exercise of the utmost restraint’ and for all parties to ‘immediately lower tensions and avoid any further escalation.’ This sounds remarkably similar to the European response at the beginning of the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession. Frankly, it is humiliating; a European country is under attack and Europeans are sitting around twiddling their thumbs. At least this time we do not have the Luxembourgious Foreign Minister popping up, as Jacques Poos did back in 1991, declaring—very wrongly—that ‘the hour of Europe’ had come.

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Selected articles:

• Svante Cornell, ‘The war that Russia wants’, The Guardian, 8th August 2008.
• Charles Crawford, ‘Georgia’s Not So Virtual Reality’, CharlesCrawford.biz, 9th August 2008.
• Edward Lucas, ‘How Georgia fell into its enemies’ trap’, The Times, 9th August 2008.
• Presidents of Poland and the Baltic States, ‘Joint Statement on the Georgia-Russia War’, Georgia Daily, 9th August 2008.
• The Professor, ‘More Russian delusions’, Streetwise Professor, 9th August 2008.
• Bronwen Maddox, ‘NATO should press on and give Georgia membership’, The Times, 10th August 2008.
• James Sherr, ‘Russia demands to be regarded as number one’, The Sunday Telegraph, 10th August 2008.
• Andrew Wilson, ‘War in Georgia—the EU needs to step in’, European Council on Foreign Relations, 10th August 2008.
• David Clark, ‘The west can no longer stand idle while the Russian bully wreaks havoc’, The Guardian, 11th August 2008.
• Denis MacShane, ‘We must act to resist Russian aggression’, Daily Telegraph, 11th August 2008.

Thanks to www.globalpowereurope.eu