Post-Gaddafian Africa. Part II

In the middle of 90s Colonel Gaddafi decided to give up his venturesome-terrorist policy at the African continent and became one of the African Union architects — this Euro-Union-like organization including an entire Africa. On the 9^th of September, 1999 African leaders adopted the declaration on creation of African Union (AU) during the OAU summit in the Libyan city of Sirt. Since the very beginning Gaddafi played the leading role in it. Despite his dubious reputation, he had an unchallenged authority within the AU, having voiced out the general urge of African countries for the equal partnership with the USA, the EU, India and China.

Post-Gaddafian Africa. Part I

Libya has been carrying out utmost active policy in Sahel (part of African continent, lying to the south from Sahara desert) long since. Libyan presence in the region is perceivable in the military, economic, cultural and propagandistic spheres. Numerous countries of this area are closely bound to Libya, while Colonel Gaddafi himself has vast connections at this territory. All the more probable step-down of Libyan Jamahiriya leader would transform the political landscape of Black Continent beyond recognition.

«END OF YALTA» MAY AS WELL BE THE END OF THE WORLD.

On the 9^th of March this year “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” published an article by Nicolay Zlobin that was entitled “End of Yalta system”. Professor Zlobin proclaimed an end of the Cold War and the stand of two global systems —according to him, “Yalta system” was the quintessence of it.

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On the 9^th of March this year “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” published an article named “End of Yalta system” by Nicolay Zlobin[1]. Professor Zlobin proclaimed an end of the Cold War and the stand of two global systems —according to him, “Yalta system” was the quintessence of it.

In his article N. Zlobin bound the change of the world order to the series of Arabian revolutions — according to him, the latter are “giving up the regional remains of Yalta system for lost. Once it used to be the foundation of the post-war world politics. The system started to recede along with collapse of the Soviet Union, but creation of Kosovo and recognition of the South Ossetia has shattered its very principles. Due to the Northern African events, it belongs to history alone”.

Completely sharing author’s opinion regarding the ideological stand of two systems and the bipolar world that have actually lost its time, I’d still like to voice up certain thoughts, which this respectable political scientist somehow failed to notice.

Tea Party. Billionaires' plot against Obama. Part II

In a statement, Koch Industries said that the Greenpeace report “distorts the environmental record of our companies.” And David Koch, in a recent, admiring article about him in New York, protested that the “radical press” had turned his family into “whipping boys,” and had exaggerated its influence on American politics. But Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said, “The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”

Tea Party. Billionaires plot against Obama. Part I.

Midterm elections that Democrats lost in November of 2010 and lost control over the House of Representatives (lower chamber of the U.S. Congress) were caused by emergence of a rising power at the American political scene and this power is the Tea Party. This Party, which borrowed its name from the history of American independence movement, has united the very same “One-storeyed America” that Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov used to describe 75 years ago.

Pragmatic European look upon Libya

Libya is an oriental country from a fairy-tale. In a decade or so one of the poorest African countries and a former pariah of global community has turned into a wealthy state that the top Western powers have been flirting with. While immersing into the revolutionary chaos Libya threatens the European Union, which is afraid of the increased inflow of illegal immigrants.

Arabian revolutions and American democracy

Revolts shattering the foundation of Arabian world have undermined the theoretical grounds of American neoconservatism, which used to be a cornerstone of Bush-Cheney’s foreign-policy. Or should we rather say Cheney-Bush? Dogmatic compliance with that doctrine since 2000 till 2008 resembled the reverent attitude of Soviet leadership to the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin.

In 1979 Jeane Kirkpatrick published her famous essay called “Dictatorships & Double Standards” in Commentary, which editor-in-chief at the moment was Norman Podhoretz — one of the neo-con father-architects. This essay caught an eye of Ronald Reagan, who was impressed by the ideas of 53-year-old “Iron lady” and invited her to his elections staff and afterwards appointed her ambassador to the United Nations. Despite the common opinion, it was Kirkpatrick — not Margaret Thatcher — who was the first woman to be honored with such title. In this essay she denounced U.S. President Jimmy Carter and claimed that he had hustled the Shah of Iran and the leader of Nicaragua — who headed, putting it mildly, not the most democratic regimes ever — out of office. Both Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi and Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza were far from democratic ideals, yet both were pro-American. The results of their overthrow were disastrous. Friendly authoritarians were gone; true totalitarians were taking over in both places. While authoritarian regimes of the right could mellow over time into democracies, totalitarians ones of the left would not. Anyway, it required "decades, if not centuries," Kirkpatrick observed, for "people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits" to create a viable democracy.

Not the right time for the G2. Part 2

Chinese economic miracle became possible and will remain such in future if PRC decides to be a part of global economic and political system, if it will wish and be able to participate in the global discourse on the model of its further development and exchange of ideas. Therefore, fantasies about unipolar and even bipolar (the USA—China) world would hardly come true in the foreseeable future. China is, without a shadow of doubt, an important element of global economics, politics and international security. But the roles of the so-called emerging powers like Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia and Turkey will also be increasing. That’s why we have to mark out the following statement of the U.S. State Secretary:

“History teaches that the rise of new powers often ushers in periods of conflict and uncertainty. Indeed, on both sides of the Pacific, we do see some trepidation about the rise of China and about the future of the U.S.-China relationship. Some in the region and some here at home see China’s growth as a threat that will lead either to Cold War-style conflict or American decline. And some in China worry that the United States is bent on containing China’s rise and constraining China’s growth, a view that is stoking a new streak of assertive Chinese nationalism. We reject those views.”

Not the right time for the G2. Part I

On the 18^th of February, right before Hu Jintao’s visit to the USA, Hillary Clinton delivered a speech in the State Department where she mentioned the possible future format of Sino-American relationship in the 21^st century. Recent rapid growth of the PRC economics made everyone talking about the new Chinese global role, which may reconfigure the G8 having reduced it to the G2 — alliance of America and China.

Public address of the U.S. State Secretary was timed to the commemoration events for Richard C. Holbrooke, who passed away in the end of last year. This well-known American diplomat used to be the State Secretary Deputy for the Asian-Pacific region in Jimmy Carter’s government and was mostly responsible for the coordination of foreign-policy efforts that normalized the diplomatic relations between the PRC and the USA in 1978-79 after death of Mao Zedong and Dang Xiaoping’s coming to power. Since then world has changed and so have both of these countries. As madam State Secretary emphasized, it was the rule of Democratic President (Richard Nixon) and efforts of then chief of American diplomacy Henry Kissinger that helped to achieve the fundamental improvement of bilateral relationship: