Suchergebnisse

Was Wesley Clark, NATO's commander-in-chief, right when he said that, instead of launching the operation 'Allied Force' against it, the allies shoul have electronically isolated SR Yugoslavia? Yugoslav hackers and crackers used to good advantage the freedom of the cyberspace. During NATO's intervention, they declared a real 'virtual war' to all the countries supportive of this campaign, particularly to the USA. By swooping down by all available means on numerous official web pages of various American institutions and totally abusing the communicational freedoms on the Net, Yugoslav hackers in fact demonstrated a small part of the possibilities of the new e-force. However, the deleterious consequences of Yugoslav on-line users' activities were so harmful that they prodded the international community into issuing a blunt warning to the Serbian Telecom - we shall switch you off from the Internet! The objective of this research is primarily to evidence a totally novel phenomenon on the Internet, the first organized virtual war taking place in the cyberspace, at the time when a real military campaign was waged against SRY. One of the outcomes of these activities was striking out' the documents from the Net that had been preserved only in this texts' authors' archive. There are no additional scientific resources, since the key sources for this article were the Internet and newspaper articles. Although envisaged as a medium available to all, the Internet must soon be safeguarded and protected by legal means. Otherwise, it might simply cave in under the onslaught of all abuses and innumerable viruses circulating the global cyberspace. Due to the increase in the number of users and services, it may be expected that soon a completely new branch of criminal law is to emerge - computer crime. (SOI : PM: S. 242)

An analysis of the US foreign policy strategy shows that a more intensive advocacy of human rights and democracy is us usually a characteristic for democratic American presidents and their administrations. The numerous challenges of the new world order which Bill Clinton was faced with, required the redefinition of the role, goals, and interests of the sole remaining superpower in the new international community. The promotion of democracy and liberal market values and the protection of universal human rights have been the guidelines for Clinton's administration's foreign policy during both of his mandates. Due to the specific features and intensity of geopolitical changes, which resulted in armed conflicts in the South-Eastern Europe, the consequence of the American policy towards the newly-created countries (the so-called young democracies on the Old Continent, including the new Russia) was that the first NATO's military "out of area" campaign on Kosovo was justified as an attempt to stem the flood of refugees and to make an end to the violation of ethnic and other human rights. Since the US have announced their intention to intervene when and if (and based on their interests), they deem that basic human rights and democratic values are violated, it can be said that a new pattern of behaviour has emerged which would have to be adopted by the other members of the new world order as well. (SOI : PM: S. 122)

The United States of America are the front runner of the contemporary process of globalization. The global American superiority in the political, military, economic, and cultural spheres goes hand in hand with the globalization trends, focusing on the activity of the global leader. The design of the new strategic approach which was to include its vision of the new relations as well as of its global leading role, has been unhurried and circumspect. In the course of two Clinton's mandates the finishing touches of that new outlook got concrete contours in practical actions, so it seems that the search for the place of the leader is soon going to called off. The American politics is entering the next millennium as a well defined and organized enterprise with well thought out global objectives. (SOI : PM: S. 41)

Henry Kissinger is one of the most eminent and influential intellectuals in American foreign policy. His work and achievements may be divided into three phases of his participation in the creation of American foreign policy. In the first - scholarly - phase of his career, he criticized US foreign polic His works from that period clearly reflect his "realpolitik" outlook. Particularly important for his life and work is the second phase when he was able, as a national security adviser and later as Secretary of State for presidents Nixon and Ford, to use his remarkable intellectual capital and successfully practice realpolitik as the creator and proponent of American foreign policy. After his retirement from foreign policy administration, Kissinger did not cease to use his clout in the field of international relations and American foreign policy. He has been one of the most significant American intellectuals who have exerted an influence on American foreign policy. (SOI : SOEU: S. 133)

NATO's military action in Yugoslavia is a pivotal event that is going to leave an indelible impact on the further direction of international relations. The author first analyses the underlying causes of the campaign, among which were: the international community's resolve to finally punish Milosevic', be instrumental in eliminating his regime, drive out Russian interests from the Balkans, espouse a positive stance towards Muslim countries and, finally, the internal political American reason: the desire to strengthen President Clinton's position. This action has also had a manifold significance for the new world order since it poses the questions of the world order's content and nature, its leadership and norms in a new light. In the process of establishing of the new post-cold-war relations, various tendencies that will pave the way to the new millennium will clash. On the one hand, there will be the exclusive approach based on force and interests, and on the other, the desire to establish the relations in which human rights will be the fundamental criterion for assessing the suitability of a country for a full membership in the newly unified international community. (SOI : S. 24)

In the introduction, the author analyses Clinton's approach to Europe and the European NATO allies, particularly his wish to develop the partnership and to expand the Alliance. The new post-cold-war relations in Europe contributed to the stronger American-European ties - the foundation of atlantism. This new model of relations is discussed in relation to the emerging challenges that pose the key questions: the creation of a new joint strategy, the problems of NATO's "out of area" interventions and the creation of such European relations that will not provoke uncalled-for Russian reactions. Seen within such a framework, NATO is going to remain the chief proponent of military-political actions of the developed world in which US is to play the leading role. (SOI : S. 102)

Following the disintegration of the socialist system in Europe and the end of the bloc-based relations, American politics has changed the course of its operation. In present-day circumstances, Southeastern Europe is becoming increasingly prominent in American foreign-policy projections, particularly during Clinton's administration. Clinton has defined a clear-cut policy towards Europe's southeast due to its vicinity to certain neuralgic points of American engagement (Near East, the Caspian region, the Gulf, eastern Mediterranean). In this way American politics has proved its leading global role. At the time of scarcity of foreign-policy events, Clinton's team has thus been served on a platter a major foreign-policy arena, in which its engagement - which has all the symptoms of a long-lasting one - has not proved too costly. (SOI : PM: S. 20)

The author poses the question about the fate of neoconservatism, in the 1980s the official political orientation in the USA. Twenty years later, one can see how anti-communism and anti-modernism, neoconservatism's fundamental ideological premises, have changed the political practice and awareness, both (and equally) in American foreign and national policy. Though conceptually incoherent, neoconservatism has proved to possess exceptional clout. This has led the author to conclude that neoconservatism, despite the claims by neoconservatives themselves that it is dead, still has much leeway, since voters' awareness has been changed: they have got used to the new political context, they vote for well-balanced "mixtures" of rightist and leftist ideologies. (SOI : PM: S. 164)

The author analyzes the process of the NATO expansion in Europe following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Paradoxically, after the end of the cold war, the security conditions in Europe have not improved. On the contrary, the danger of military conflicts has increased. That is why most former communist countries, including the newly created states which emerged after the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, have been trying to eliminate this danger and strengthen their security by joining NATO. The Russian Federation is the main opponent of the NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, particularly on the states which came into being after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The author describes in detail the geostrategical and geopolitical implications of the admittance of the first group of Eastern-European countries into the NATO (Poland, Czech Republic and Romania), as well as the prospects of the NATO expansion onto the other countries in the region. He sees the American initiative for the cooperation in Southeastern Europe as a complement to the process of the NATO expansion. In the end he criticizes NATO's process of selection of new members, the process which has left Croatia (for the time being) in a sort of a geostrategical void. (SOI : PM: S. 118)

American and international public looks up to American presidents as the chief creators of American foreign policy. A review of the contemporary history of US foreign policy is mostly a review of foreign policy platforms and initiatives of American presidents. Although fundamental prerequisites exist - constitutional powers, executive office of the President as support in the creation and implementation of certain decisions, the expectations of the Congress and the public that President should lead the nation in the foreign policy arena - not all American presidents have taken an equal interest in foreign policy decision-making and the creation of American foreign policy; this has depended on their personal interests and experiences. Despite significant constitutional restrictions of the president's autonomous action in foreign policy and occasionally successful attempts of the legislature to assume control over foreign policy, as well as frequent challenges to presidential powers and numerous actions by the public, we can conclude that American presidents are nevertheless dominant figures in the field of American foreign policy. (SOI : PM: S. 192)

The author argues that in the debates about "democratic transition" of post- socialist societies the importance of development of state of law for the formation of democracy has not been sufficiently accounted for. The absence of state of law results in the formation of authoritarian structures of politi power which in the long run obstruct the process of democratization. Those structures include the concentration of political power in the hands of charismatic leaders, the transformation of political into economic power, the formation of clientelist structures, the development of a system of privileges and corruption, and the break-down of the state monopoly of the means of violence, resulting in the "refeudalization" of political power. In conclusion the author describes two developmental options for the post-socialist societies: the formation of a "Latin American" type of authoritarian-populist regimes or the gradual transformation towards a Western type of state of law and liberal democracy, initiated by the pressures from the international environment and internal forces. (SOI : PM: S. 85)