Word: sovietization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...culture and ethnicity. It is quite true that Pakistan may never have resolved what Sabahat Ashraf, a Pakistani blogger now living in California, calls its "existential dilemma: Are we an Islamic state, or are we a state of Muslims?" but Islam has always been a common denominator. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the nation rallied under the banner of jihad. Today any attack on Islam, even the perception of one, is akin to an assault on Pakistan's very identity. When the militants say they too are fighting for Islam, just as the mujahedin fought the Soviets, it creates...
...major issue in NATO-Russia relations has been the conflict between NATO and Russia over control in several parts of the post-Soviet sphere, especially the Caucasian state of Georgia. Indeed, many security analysts have concurred that former President Bush’s declaration of support for Georgia’s NATO membership bid was a major factor in last August’s war between Georgia and Russia. Since then, Georgia, which still hopes to join the alliance, has been a sticking point in NATO-Russia relations. NATO’s recent decision to go ahead with planned military...
...families on both sides of the match had already seriously meddled with what had been a pretty simple proposal. An outgrowth of the E.U.'s long-standing European Neighborhood Program (ENP), the Eastern Partnership (EaP) plan called for establishing preferential development, trade, and travel agreements with the six former Soviet republics in exchange for them taking steps to create solid and responsible free market economies and democratic political systems. In that way, the multi-lateral EaP sought to strike up and reinforce ties with the E.U.'s outlying neighbors even faster than the bilateral ENP agreements had. (See pictures...
...Given that, European leaders who in 2008 had enthusiastically backed proposing the EaP to the six former Soviet republics began scrambling to lower its scope ahead of its May 7 launch in Prague. Just hours before the gathering, for example, German and Dutch officials pushed to change wording in the official document to refer to the six EaP postulates as "partner countries" rather than "European countries". They similarly struck any language that even remotely hinted at possible E.U. membership for any time in the future, and revised a "long-term goal" previously described as "visa-free travel" by EaP citizens...
...other words, if the six former Soviet republics came away from the Prague summit disappointed and confused, they aren't alone...