Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chuzzlewit who wrote (33986)	4/7/1999 6:36:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Damn, foiled again...Thought I'd managed to slip away! Okay, Chuzzlewit, since I DID say that "the intervention of NATO into what it would normally shun as an 'internal' conflict raises a whole host of questions", I agree to discuss one -- but only one -- of those questions. <gg> Actually, I am supposed to be finishing off my income tax right now, which is why I allow myself to be so easily distracted from the business at hand... Ahem. The question is: What happens to the balance between those two eternally warring principles: the principle of territorial integrity, and the principle of self-determination? Sometimes one is in fashion; sometimes the other. In recent years, in the West, the principle of territorial integrity has held undisputed sway. That has been most especially true of the OSCE, the outfit that is supposed to ensure the implementation of the Helsinki Accords, which, among other things, proclaimed the inviolability of international borders. Since I know the former Soviet Union better than other areas of the world, forgive me for dwelling on it for a bit. First, let me observe, parenthetically, that the former Soviet republics, all of which are now full-fledged members of the OSCE, never signed the Helsinki Accords; it was signed by the Soviet Union, whose territorial integrity they violated. Such are the contradictions of life! Well, onwards... In any event, whenever any kind of territorial dispute arose anywhere in the former Soviet Union, the OSCE unequivocally supported the principle of territorial integrity. This was true of the conflict betweeen Russia and Chechnya; of the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia; of the conflict between Moldavia and the Dniester Republic; of the conflict involving Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Nagorno-Karabakh; etc., etc. Yet at the same time, as even some people within the OSCE came to realize, this unqualified adherence to the principle of territorial integrity seriously weakened the OSCE's effectiveness as a mediator. How can you mediate a conflict when everybody knows in advance which side you support? How can you even pretend to be objective? Besides, is it true that once you begin revising borders, there will be no end to it? Will all the dominoes begin to fall? We may find out soon, thanks to the Kosovo crisis... Of course, at first the West's avowed goal was not to split Kosovo off from Yugoslavia, but to work out a deal that would keep it within Yugoslavia, at least for the time being. I suspect that the West -- primarily the US -- was simply deluding itself. The end result of the NATO action may very well be the appearance of an independent Kosovo, which sooner or later will have to attach itself to some other neighboring state, in order to survive economically. And so the map will change, as maps always have, throughout human history...In my opinion, it is presumptuous to think that we can arrest the process, freeze it for all time, at this one point. It's like trying to freeze the ocean.... jbe