Friday, September 26, 2014

China's Tactics in Eastern Europe


Coalition of the Willing - Europe

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25-5-10 European leaders pressure Russia over 30-day Ukraine ceasefire | BBC > .
25-5-28 Defense Tech Is Rewriting Global Power Dynamics - gtbt > .

The coalition of the willing [R-U War], as it is known, is a coalition of 31 countries which have pledged strengthened support for Ukraine against Russian aggression, going further than the support delivered by the Ukraine Defense Contact Group by pledging readiness to also be part of a peacekeeping force deployed on Ukrainian territory, either by providing troops or contributing in other ways. The peacekeeping force is envisaged only to be deployed the moment Ukraine and Russia sign a "comprehensive ceasefire agreement" or "peace deal" to settle the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. The initiative, led by the United Kingdom and France, was announced by British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on 2 March 2025, following the 2025 London Summit on Ukraine under the motto "securing our future".
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The coalition ... met again for a third high-level summit in Paris on 27 March 2025, with an agenda to finalise the plans on how the coalition shall be designed and deployed as a military force to ensure that a potential ceasefire will be lasting for Ukraine. The agenda of the summit included drafting and debating a peace treaty proposal written by the coalition, drafting and debating how the coalition can secure a "complete ceasefire" acceptable to Ukraine, bolster aid to Ukraine (with each participating country expected to outline what it is prepared to do), and agreeing on a plan for providing long-term support for the Ukrainian army.
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The stated aim of the initiative is to facilitate the peace negotiation attempts launched and mediated by the United States between Ukraine and Russia in February 2025, by helping to build up strong enough security guarantees for Ukraine to ensure that a potential reached ceasefire or peace deal would be lasting. Besides serving the role as building up a potential peacekeeping force, the coalition have also expressed readiness to increase military support for Ukraine and strengthen economic sanctions against Russia, in the event that the ongoing negotiations for a "comprehensive ceasefire" or "peace deal" would fail. As of 20 March 2025, the exact shape and function of the coalition was described as still being subject to ongoing planning, but moved into an "operational phase".

Courting the Balkans


Courting the Balkans ..

Cyprus Conflict

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Deutsche Wiedervereinigung - '89-'90 Reunification

.German reunification – short history | DW Doc > .

German reunification (Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic (GDR) became part of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) to form the reunited nation of Germany.

The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity (German: Deutsche Einheit), celebrated each year on 3 October as German Unity Day (German: Tag der deutschen Einheit). Berlin was reunited into a single city, and again became the capital of united Germany.

The East German government started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain. The border was still closely guarded, but the Pan-European Picnic and the indecisive reaction of the rulers of the Eastern Bloc set in motion an irreversible peaceful movement. It allowed an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany via Hungary. The Peaceful Revolution, a series of protests by East Germans, led to the GDR's first free elections on 18 March 1990, and to the negotiations between the GDR and FRG that culminated in a Unification Treaty. Other negotiations between the GDR and FRG and the four occupying powers produced the so-called "Two Plus Four Treaty" (Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany) granting full sovereignty to a unified German state, whose two parts were previously bound by a number of limitations stemming from their post-World War II status as occupied regions.

The 1945 Potsdam Agreement had specified that a full peace treaty concluding World War II, including the exact delimitation of Germany's postwar boundaries, required to be "accepted by the Government of Germany when a government adequate for the purpose is established." The Federal Republic had always maintained that no such government could be said to have been established until East and West Germany had been united within a free democratic state; but in 1990 a range of opinions continued to be maintained over whether a unified West Germany, East Germany, and Berlin could be said to represent "Germany as a whole" for this purpose. The key question was whether a Germany that remained bounded to the east by the Oder–Neisse line (the international border with Poland) could act as a "united Germany" in signing the peace treaty without qualification. Under the "Two Plus Four Treaty" both the Federal Republic and the Democratic Republic committed themselves and their unified continuation to the principle that their joint pre-1990 boundaries constituted the entire territory that could be claimed by a Government of Germany, and hence that there were no further lands outside those boundaries that were parts of Germany as a whole.

The post-1990 united Germany is not a successor state, but an enlarged continuation of the former West Germany. The enlarged Federal Republic of Germany retained the West German seats in international organizations including the European Economic Community (later the European Union), NATO, and the United Nations. Memberships in the Warsaw Pact and other international organizations to which East Germany belonged ended because East Germany ceased to exist.

sī vīs pācem, parā bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...