New Edition of the East-West Conflict?
Challenges to Peace and the New Wars in Europe
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Russia’s covert war in Ukraine triggered a civil war in the country’s east. This military expansion has its roots in the political split in Ukrainian society and a profound crisis between the West and Russia. However, this is not a return of the East-West conflict, but a new kind of conflict between Moscow and Brussels, which had already assumed bellicose dimensions in Kosovo in 1999 and in South Ossetia in 2008. The war in Ukraine and the deep crisis in relations between the West and Russia can be overcome only if a pan-European economic and security cooperation structure is created that regulates the integration competition between Moscow and Brussels, between eastern autocracy and western democracy. To this end, a compromise between the warring factions in Ukraine is also required.
(Osteuropa 3/2015, pp. 25–45)