Security dilemma in Ukraine: The second reading of Barry Posen

Abstract

This paper tries to establish which circumstances have changed in Ukraine and led to the crisis in 2013 and armed conflict in 2014. The model for analysis is borrowed from Barry R. Posen's paper 'The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict' (1993). Posen uses the concept of security dilemma in order to explain why the ethnic conflict emerged between Serbs and Croats during the breakup of Yugoslavia and why there was no conflict between Russians and Ukrainians during the breakup of the USSR. The main task of this paper is to check if Posen's explanation still stands and to check if Posen's indicators could have signaled that the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 was imminent.

U ovom radu pokušavam da ustanovim koje okolnosti u odnosima Rusa i Ukrajinaca u Ukrajini su se promenile i dovele do krize koja ja počela 2013, a eskalirala 2014. godine. Kao obrazac za analizu koristim tekst prof. Berija Pozena (Barry R. Posen) Bezbednosna dilema i entnički sukob (The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict) iz 1993. godine u kome uz pomoć koncepta bezbednosne dileme objašnjava zašto je došlo do entičkog sukoba između Srba i Hrvata posle raspada SFRJ, a istovremeno nije došlo do sukoba Rusa i Ukrajinaca posle raspada SSSR. Prema tome, glavni zadatak ovog rada je da pokaže da li Pozenovo objašnjenje još uvek stoji i da li je upravo promena faktora za koje je on smatrao da su bili ključni za održanje mira u Ukrajini sada dovela do kraha demokratije i sukoba u ovoj etnički složenoj Državi.