Unclear Territories: Russia and Ukraine - Case Study Example

WORLD REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY Unclear territories: Russia and Ukraine The dispute between Ukraine and Russia, which lies in the political, ethnic, economic, and historically, blurred cultural lines between the two countries resulted to crimerias break away from Ukraine to join Russia. Crimeria became part of Russian empire back in 1783; in 1795, the region merged into the Novorossiysk Governorate, later as the Russian governments kept changing Crimeria was incorporated into its own state. When the second world war ended there was deportation of many indigenous crimerian Tatar, in this era the Russian governments stripped Crimeria of its autonomy. In 1954, by decree of the leader of the Soviet Union, crimerian oblast transferred to Ukrainian SSR from the Russian SFSR. After Ukraines independence, the new Ukrainian government maintained crimerias "autonomous status," later in 1995 the Ukrainian authorities limited the autonomous status of Crimeria (Nikolko & Carment, 2014). The Euromaidan revolution began in 2013 when the president (Victor Yanukovych) started supporting the move for Crimeria to join the European Union. The supreme council, on the other hand, supported the governments decision that aimed at suspending negotiations on the negotiations regarding Ukraine joining the European Union. The crimerian government was against the move and urged the citizens to strengthen their friendly ties with Russia instead of supporting Ukraines idea. This began the crisis between the Russian government and the Ukrainian government, in 2014 they reached its tip point, Victor Yanukovych greatly supported by the Euromaidan movement sparked the political crisis in Crimeria. The country was in unrest state, the crimerian citizens started demonstrations against the new Ukrainian government, the demonstrations later spread rapidly as a result of Russia overt support for the separatist political factions (Nesnera, 2014). The violence increased after suspicions that a the crimerian meeting in February 2014 aimed at calling for help from the Russian government, however, predictions were that Russia would join in the crisis in support of Crimeria due to its unique demographics and unique geographical nature. On the other hand, the Ukrainian government vowed to protect any actions taken by Russian against diminishing the territorial sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine, however, even with the wave of unrest the crimerians remained in Russians side. Once Russia joined with Crimeria, the Ukrainian government sent support requests to the United Nations, in this they ask the United Nations to provide round the clock monitor of the security situation in Crimeria. Even with the conflicts within the region Crimeria attempted to break of Ukraine peacefully to join Russia, this mainly depended on the step by step coordinations that the crimerian political parties would take. The main factor that resulted to crimerias breaking of Ukraine peacefully was the new referendum, in these referendum 95% of the participating voters were in favor of joining Russia. The military violence within eastern Ukraine resulted from the fact that Ukraine did not want to let Crimeria join Russia. This is because Crimeria is located in an area that gives access to gas and oil reserves worth trillions of dollars; also, the annexation deprives the chances of energy independence of Ukraine (Violence in Eastern Ukraine:An intensification of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed militia forces and Ukrainian security forces, with potential overt Russian military intervention, 2015). Resource curse: pipeline politics The resource curse is the situation of paradox in which a country is dependent on a certain natural resource. In this paradoxical situation, the country with the abundance of the non-renewable resource such as oil and gas mostly experience economic contraction and also stagnant growth. In most cases, the situation of resource curse occurs when the country focuses all its energy towards a single industry, for example, mining of oil neglecting all the other major sectors of the economy. In such a situation, the country becomes dependent on the price of the commodity that in turn makes the gross domestic product volatile. In countries where there is a non-renewable resource corruption within the government is abundant, this corruption often results when the country does not have a proper income and resource rights distribution framework (Hardy). Also, the situation of resource curse occurs when there is a decline in the competitiveness of other sectors of the economy, for example, mismanagement of resources, ineffectual, unstable, and weak institution within the sectors. In petroleum producing countries in most cases face the problem of resource curse, in 1998 for example, the gross national product within many of these oil countries had decreased by 1.3% by average, while the rest of the world had developed by 2.2% (Vladimir, 2010). An example greatly affected by these situation of the resource curse is Iraqi, the country has a weak nonexistent economic and political which mainly results from the existence of this curse. The existence wealth from the resource stalls the political change within these countries; corruption dominates the government within the country. In most of the cases of the resource, the country is faced with developmental issues which mostly results from corruption. In Iraq, the oil resource undermines the societies, this is because the price of oil within the country is greatly volatile, and in this case, the country depends on the export of oil exposing the country to a lot of risks and uncertainty. Also, the oil prices keep on fluctuating, this in turn creates a cycle in which the Iraq government has to spend widely in times of flush, and this later forces the country to costly spending cuts when the prices fall. The existence of oil in Iraq also leads to the concept of "Dutch disease," this concept involves the situation in which a country focuses too much on exploiting the resource that crowds out the other activities aiming at the development of the country. In Iraq, after discovering the resource the countrys currency became stronger, this in turn hurt the domestic manufacturers as it made it difficult to compete with the lower priced imports. This results in a situation where most of the countrys capital starts and labor was deployed in the local non-tradable sectors, the country suffered greatly from this situation due to the loss of the benefits such as good management and technological innovation. Natural resources play a role in impeding the development of the societys political and economic institutions, in Iraq the presence of oil interferes with the way the economic and political institutions operate mostly due to corruption (Tella, Dubra, & Macculloch, 2010) References Auty, R. M. (n.d.). The Resource Curse and Sustainable Development. Handbook of Sustainable Development. Beck, T. (2009). Finance and Oil: Is There a Resource Curse in Financial Development? SSRN Electronic Journal SSRN Journal. Birdsall, N., & Subramanian, A. (2004). Saving Iraq From Its Oil. Hardy, J. (n.d.). Resource Curse. Encyclopedia of Global Justice. Nesnera, A. (2014). What Prompted Putins Annexation of Crimea? Nikolko, M., & Carment, D. (2014). Is there a Peaceful Way out of the Crimea Crisis? Rosenberg, T. (2013). Avoiding the curse of the Oil-Rich Nation. Tella, R., Dubra, J., & Macculloch, R. (2010). A Resource Belief-Curse? Oil and Individualism. Violence in Eastern Ukraine:An intensification of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed militia forces and Ukrainian security forces, with potential overt Russian military intervention. (2015). Vladimir, m. (2010). Resource curse and post-Soviet Eurasia oil, gas, and modernization. Lanham MD: Lexington Books. Read More