Russia's aggression against Ukraine necessitates a thorough review of recent world history

 Russia's aggression against Ukraine necessitates a thorough review of recent world history

Nika Chitadze

Director of the Center for International Studies 

Professor of the International Black Sea University

President of the George C. Marshall Alumni Union, Georgia - International and Security Research Center  

Russia's aggression against Ukraine certainly requires a lot of discussions. One of the main things in my opinion should be to look at the current events within the new and recent history from the beginning and completely. In particular, it should probably be concluded that no "Cold War" ended in the early 1990s, only a change in the "Cold War" as a historical process. That is, the world socialist (communist by Western standards) system disintegrated, and in the former socialist countries and post-Soviet republics of Central and Eastern Europe, as in some newly independent states, a more or less successful centralized planned economy was replaced by a market economy.

In addition, speaking of the collapse of the Soviet Union, we can say that the Soviet Union, and the largest part of the Russian Soviet Empire, or the Russian Federation (17.1 million square kilometers of the largest state in the world) remained on the political map of the world), and the latter (indirect and figurative terms) retained the status of a permanent member of the UN Security Council, as well as a nuclear state. That is, the USSR did not disintegrate and democratize, but the so-called Soviet Empire lost its territory (former Soviet republics - which of course did not historically belong to Russia) and geopolitical or ideological spheres of influence in Central and Eastern Europe and Africa, Asia and Latin America. In countries with an American socialist orientation.

Consequently, there was no longer one of the characteristics of the Cold War, the confrontation between a free market economy and a centralized planned economy, although the geopolitical confrontation between West and East, ie Atlanticism and Eurasianism, as well as the two ideologies - Democracy and Authoritarianism - He showed himself by force. In particular, Russia viewed the entire post-Soviet space as its geopolitical sphere of influence and therefore escalated the conflicts in Abkhazia, the Tskhinvali region, Karabakh, Transnistria, and Crimea, thus preventing the various post-Soviet republics from strengthening their statehood and internationalization. Also, back in the 90s, during the rule of President Yeltsin in Russia, there was a confrontation during the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as during the NATO enlargement to the east, then there was the genocide committed by Russia during the two wars in Chechnya, already during Putin's presidency. It's escalating tensions over the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, and Iran's nuclear program. Clear examples of geopolitical confrontation were the West's recognition of Kosovo's independence and Russia's aggression against Georgia and Ukraine, the Kremlin's cyber-attacks around the world, the cancellation of the US-Russia Strategic Missile Disarmament Treaty in 2019 which was signed in 1987. Russia's withdrawal in 2007 from the Treaty on the Reduction of Conventional Arms in Europe was signed in 1990 and the "crowning" of all of this is large-scale aggression by Russia against Ukraine.

Based on the above, we can conclude that since the 1990s, primarily in the post-Soviet space and in various parts of the world, new conflicts and controversies have emerged, primarily as a result of Russia's aggressive policies, and the end of the Cold War could be discussed only if Russia became democratic. The state at home and abroad, which did not happen and, consequently, the realities of the "Cold War" remained on the agenda of world politics, and the Russia-Ukraine war and, consequently, the confrontation between the West and Russia took humanity into the "hot war".