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Ancient hostilities is not a good enough explanation Poses using the classic realist concept of the Security Dilemma to form his article using It to analyze the “special conditions that arise when groups of people suddenly find themselves newly responsible for their own security’ Once a group is required to provide its own protection, it must ask questions of their immediate neighbors… Are they a threat? Will that threat grow or reduce overtime? Can we do anything about that threat?
Security Dilemma will be used to analyze the break-up of Yugoslavia and relations between Russia and Ukraine The collapse of imperial regimes is more or less the same thing as emerging anarchy The disappearance of a sovereign (Hobnails Realism) leaves in its wake numerous ethnic, cultural, and religious groups that are now responsible for their “problem of security’ The problem arises because these groups usually lack the attributes of statehood legitimacy The Security Dilemma according to Poses: What one state does to enhance its own security causes reactions that, in the end, can make one less secure”.
All states will fear betrayal Actions taken that a state views as strengthening its own defenses will often seem offensive and threatening to another state Delightfulness offensive and Defensive military capabilities If offensive operations are more effective than defense, states will choose they offensive if they wish to survive This creates incentives for states to strike first whenever war appears likely Imperial collapse, or the loss of the sovereign, makes offensive and defensive abilities indistinguishable When the group national Identity or “grossness” Is more cohesive and strong… He combat power of military units is heightened. Infantry units with a sense of togetherness is important Often can provide the emotional power required to passionately take the offensive strategy This is especially true because military technology for these groups is often weak They lack sophisticated sponsors for their weaponry Nationalism does not affect the security dilemma when nuclear weapons become Groups will analyze the historical record of large scale armed clashes with other reticular groups, regardless of its subjectivity, as a basis to conclude if they are threats or not.
It is almost a certainty that after such an analysis they will see the other groups as threats. The Superiority of Offensive over Defensive Action Technology and geography are the two main factors affecting the superiority of offensive over defensive action Variance in technology affects the military capabilities of all states in a competition Geography depends on the situation; it could be a distinct advantage or disadvantage to certain states for specific reasons
Geography is especially important when an empire collapses Some groups will have greater offensive capabilities because they surround some or all of the other groups Geography can leave certain groups isolated from the rest of their population See Windows of Vulnerability below; another incentive for new groups to launch immediate offensive military plans against neighbors “When central authority has recently collapsed, the emerging groups must calculate their power relative to each other and make a guess about their relative power in the future” Windows of Vulnerability and Opportunity
The vulnerability of civilians makes it possible for small bands of fanatics to initiate conflict Fanatical, rebel military groups are hard for the central power (even if it is eroding) to control Political leadership can try and deny responsibility for them Windows of vulnerability: when the central authority collapses, and as the various newly divided groups are weighing their relative power compared to their neighbors, they will see any immediate weaknesses in neighboring groups as an indicator to go on an offensive military plan sooner rather than later.
Some new states are at an immediate disadvantage or vulnerability after the collapse of the previous empire. This is a result of their previous power position of power under the old regime Groups must also will have expectations about the possibilities of outside intervention from the allies of opposing groups when making war calculations Do the opposing groups have important and militarily superior allies that might intervene? Are the allies of another group currently pre-occupied with another issue?
This affects the determined windows of opportunity and vulnerability for groups Will act n quicker offensive fashion if allies are unable to supply immediate aid to opposing groups The behavior of international organizations like the UN also encourages offensive military behavior This is because these organizations have proven largely unable to anticipate or predict when and where conflict will arise They have mostly been a Croatian and Seers conflict Through the ‘lens of the security dilemma’; offensive advantage First, Parties involved saw the re-emerging identities of the others as offensive threats During WI the sides had slaughtered each other
Croatian and Seers had a deep rooted and militaristic history between each other Both suffered heavy casualty losses during WI There had been previous conflicts; notably over the creation and purpose of Yugoslavia after WWW Second, Seers were vulnerable; ‘marooned’ in Croatian and Muslim territory The “islands” that Poses mentions earlier Only offensive action from Serbia could ‘rescue’ their stranded brethren Third, Preventive War incentives were high The new republics were not equally powerful; had varying degrees of economic and population assets Access to wealth and military means also differed So did access to external allies Fourth, Small bands of fanatics began to stir military conflict which furthered nationalism tensions Russia and Ukraine The security dilemma tells us that the potential for conflict is not as great as for Yugoslavia (ha that proved accurate right? First, Russians and Ukrainians do not see each other to be as great of an offensive military threat A stabilizing factor to this is the presence of Soviet nuclear forces in both Russia and Ukraine acting as a powerful deterrent This makes it very ungenerous for either side to launch an offensive military campaign against the other Second, past relations between the two sides is less terrifying’ than the Seers and Creations No record of large-scale Russian-Ukrainian military rivalry Nationalist sentiments between the two have remained mainly non-threatening; Russia is careful not to fully portray Ukraine as their subordinate Many Ukrainian nationalists do contend that Russia and the Soviet Union did take action to stunt the growth of an independent Ukrainian identity and to ‘Russian Ukraine Neither sides ‘grossness’ posed an offensive threat to the other
Russians make up approximately 21% of the population in Ukraine They are not settled on vulnerable, isolated islands Russia is also superior economically, populously, and militarily to Ukraine which would make ‘rescuing the Russians in Ukraine a task that would likely be successful External factors play more off role than in Yugoslavia conflict Russia and Ukraine are closer to Western Europe; and conflict between the two would likely be heavily Neither side wants to be branded as the aggressor because the other would then receive the more favorably Western diplomacy Summary comparison Carats and Seers found each others identity to be a threat due to military capabilities and an ugly military history between them Nuclear presence in Ukraine and Russia has made conventional competition less likely.