Friday, 07 February 2025

E Editorial

Struggle for principles

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The intensifying struggle for a unipolar versus a multipolar world order will determine the next global system upon which fundamental principles are developed in Europe after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, implying that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory.

History proves that those principles of international relations as a rule are established at the cost of great bloodshed. Reflecting on the establishment of the Westphalian world order, it is essential to recall the preceding Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), the religious conflict fought primarily in Central Europe, which left it in ruins. Subsequently, the no less brutal Seven Years' War (1756–1763), the last major conflict unfolded before the French Revolution to involve all the great powers of Europe, followed by the catastrophic World War I (1914-1918) and  World War II (1939-1945) waged in the early and mid-20th century.

A similar process is going on now, again through wars, and it seems that this is just the beginning. And the question of what could be the principles that are the main intrigue of current developments remains unanswered. One thing, however, is clear: the war operations taking place in different parts of the world and expanding geographically and in terms of numbers are driven precisely by those principles. Let's remember the two crucial events that took place in 2021 and the beginning of 2022: the signing of the Second Atlantic Charter at the 2021 G7 Summit in Cornwall, England by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Boris Johnson and the President of the United States Joe Biden on 10 June 2021 and the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of War that started in 2014 and continues today.

By signing the Second Atlantic Charter, the leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom set out their views on the principles of the future world order, emphasizing democratic values, the "rules of the game" of international relations, climate issues and the preservation of their technologies.

Before invading Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin, in turn, visited Beijing, where at their Beijing summit in February 2022, a statement on alternative principles was signed jointly with the Chinese President Xi Jinping, proclaiming a “friendship without limits.” The document states that each country has its own ideas about democracy, and they are not the monopoly of anyone. At the same time, it is emphasized that democracy also extends to international relations, and no country or group of countries can dictate its rules and principles of the game to others.

In its turn Turkey used the occasion of World War I in 1915 to carry out the Armenian Genocide, mass slaughtering one and a half million Armenians and systematic destruction of their identity in the Ottoman Empire. Now the Armenian people are also among the victims, considering the forced depopulation of Artsakh and the atrocities of the Azeri Turks. And it is still not clear how far the scourge of conflicts will spread in our region and what price we will pay for them.

In such situations, little depends on small countries, since their main strategic task is to avoid becoming a theater of hostilities. We still haven't assessed the reasons for the defeat of the 2020 unequal war when the Turkish government standing by Azerbaijan with all its means, made the situation in Artsakh more unbearable.  From the perspective of international politics, we haven't analyzed, or corrected what our mistakes were and whether it was possible to avoid them. Failure to assess or ignoring the causes may lead to new errors with unpredictable consequences. Unfortunately, the probability of this is high, and we need to sober up.

The Armenian Center for National and International Studies

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The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect those of the Center.

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