Author: Nahapetian Boris

EurasiaNet, NY –
Aug 24 2007

IRAN-AZERBAIJAN SUMMIT: "BROTHERLY" FEELINGS, WITHOUT RESULTS
Rovshan Ismayilov 8/24/07

Analysts in Baku are divided over the outcome of Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first official visit to Azerbaijan on August
21-22. Major issues such as regional defense and energy projects and
the Caspian Sea territorial dispute are believed to have been the
focus of the visit, but both sides have been tight-lipped on the
substance of the discussions.

Publicly, both Azerbaijani and Iranian officials stressed consensus,
emphasizing the historical and religious ties that bind the two
Shi’ia Muslim nations. A joint presidential statement signed on
August 21 affirms "the importance of bilateral political dialogue in
the context of equality of states, non-interference into each other’s
affairs" and a commitment to refrain from the use or threat of force.
Repeating earlier assertions by Baku, the declaration also states
that Azerbaijan recognizes Iran’s right "to use nuclear energy
peacefully within the framework of the Treaty on the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and in cooperation with the
International Atomic Energy Agency." [For additional information see
the Eurasia Insight archive].

"The countries are getting closer," Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev said at a joint news conference. "Our relations are strong and
we are sharing opinions on all issues," Aliyev claimed that Iran also
fully supports Azerbaijan’s position on the conflict with Armenia
over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. [For background see
the Eurasia Insight archive].

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described Iran and Azerbaijan
as "two brotherly countries" that share common views "over political
issues."

"Azerbaijan’s development is Iran’s development and Iran’s
development is Azerbaijan’s development," Ahmadinejad added. "Iran
strongly supports Azerbaijan’s independence and security."

Political analysts in Baku remain unconvinced that bilateral
relations are as strong as Aliyev and Ahmadinejad portrayed them to
be. One expert, Rasim Musabekov, contends that the declarations about
a common purpose and mutual support are "just words."

"Each of these countries has its own agenda . . . and the agendas are
different. Azerbaijan will not plan to change its policy on military
cooperation with the West, nor will Iran reconsider its position on
regional and international problems," said Musabekov, a
pro-opposition commentator. "The sides carefully listened to each
other – it’s the visit’s only result."

Security issues could explain the effusiveness. Although Azerbaijan
has publicly declared its neutrality in the wrangle between Tehran
and Western states over Iran’s nuclear program, "Tehran is concerned
about Azerbaijani-US security cooperation," commented Vafa Guluzade,
a former presidential foreign policy advisor. "Iran does not want to
see threats to its national security proceeding from Azerbaijan."
[For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Aliyev also has a stake in interaction with Ahmadinejad, he added.
Keeping the door open to Tehran helps Baku maintain balance in its
relations with Washington and Moscow. "Iran is one of the major
players in our region. Therefore, Baku should confer with Tehran,"
Guluzade said.

Prior to Ahmadinejad’s visit, US-Azerbaijani security consultations
on issues ranging from North Atlantic Treaty Organization integration
to anti-missile systems were held in Washington on July 9-10. Similar
discussions took place in Baku on July 26-27 with a Russian
delegation led by Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak.

The Aliyev administration’s warm welcome for Ahmadinejad was
criticized by the Azerbaijani opposition. "Such visits to Azerbaijan
by the leader of a regime that the international community considers
a real threat are not a good sign," Musavat Party leader Isa Gambar
told the party’s Yeni Musavat newspaper on August 23. A day earlier,
police outside the Iranian Embassy forcefully broke up a
demonstration by another opposition party, the Azerbaijan National
Independence Party, which was protesting against violations of ethnic
Azeris’ rights in Iran. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive].

Guluzade believes that it is too early to say for sure where
Azerbaijani-Iranian relations are headed. Experts believe they will
have a better idea only after a meeting of the five Caspian Sea
littoral states, scheduled for October 16. The Caspian states —
Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Russia and Kazakhstan — will use the
gathering to try to break the stalemate surrounding the territorial
division of the Caspian Sea. [For background see the Eurasia Insight
archive].

"If Iran accepts any compromise on the Caspian legal status there
[during the meeting], it would mean Baku likely gave some guarantees
about not [raising] military cooperation with the United States to a
level that would threaten Iran," he said.

Ilgar Mammadov, an independent Baku-based political analyst, drew
attention to energy issues.

At the news conference, President Aliyev said that the two countries
are considering joint projects to "ensure regional security," as well
as the European Union-backed 3,300-kilometer Nabucco pipeline
project, intended to export gas from Turkey to Austria via Eastern
Europe. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Despite US misgivings about such a partnership, growing demand from
Europe for alternatives to Russian gas could motivate this interest,
Mammadov believes. Securing compromises from Tehran on the legal
status of the Caspian Sea could better position Azerbaijan to be a
major player in the European gas game. To win the concessions,
Azerbaijan may offer guarantees to bar "anti-Iranian military
cooperation" with the United States and propose possibilities for
facilitating the export of Iranian gas to Europe, he suggested.

In Baku, Ahmadinejad took a backhanded swipe at what he cast as US
attempts to enlist Baku in a plan to geopolitically encircle Tehran.
"Some forces" who are allegedly trying to "create problems between
Iran and Azerbaijan," the Iranian president said, "have no chances"
for success.

Mammadov believes no particular agreements between Baku and Tehran
were reached during Ahmadinejad’s recent visit. "There are still
debates between the West and Russia for Central Asian gas from one
side, and between the Europe and the US on energy cooperation with
Iran. And Ahmadinejad’s visit to Baku highlighted these conflicts,"
Mammadov said.

The trip was the Iranian leader’s third visit to Azerbaijan, though
the first official trip. Ahmadinejad last visited Baku in May 2006 at
the Organization of Economic Cooperation’s summit. [For details, see
the Eurasia Insight archive]. Aliyev, in turn, last visited Tehran in
2005.

Editor’s Note: Rovshan Ismayilov is a freelance journalist based in
Baku.

ARMENIAN POLICE EXPLAIN THE SCUFFLE NEAR THE TRIUMPH CAFE

arminfo
2007-08-24 18:03:00

Today press-service of the Armenian police made a statement on
explaining on information of mass media about the scuffle near the
Triumph cafe in the centre of Yerevan.

According to the statement, at 6:30 PM, on 22 August the police
received a signal about the scuffle not far from the ‘Flying float’
cafe. The operational group, which immediately arrived at the place,
cleared out that there was no incident near the above mentioned
cafe. According to the received information, the row was taking
place not far from the Triumph cafe, the workers of which said that
the incident was taking place at the opposite sidewalk. Teenagers
at the age of 14-16 that were taking part in the incident, left the
place later.

FIVE LOCAL NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS TO IMPLEMENT OBSERVATION MISSION IN ELECTORAL CONSTITUENCY 15 ON AUGUST 26

Noyan Tapan
Aug 22, 2007

YEREVAN, AUGUST 22, NOYAN TAPAN. Five local non-governmental
organizations will implement an observation mission during the
by-elections to be held by the majoritarian system of the National
Assembly in Electoral Constituency 15 of the Aragatsotm marz (region)
on August 26. According to the information provided to Noyan Tapan by
the Press Service of the Central Electoral Commission, 45 observers
from the "Will of the young", 174 observers from "Choice is yours", 5
observers from "August 23, ‘National Alliance’ law-protecting union",
8 from "’Lighthouse’ development center for education and culture
for disabled people", and 84 observers from the "Justice and Law"
non-governmental organizations will take part in the elections.

YEREVAN’S WOMEN’S TEAM AND GYUMRI’S MEN’S TEAM OF TABLE TENNIS BECOME CHAMPIONS OF ALL ARMENIAN GAMES

Noyan Tapan
Aug 22, 2007

YEREVAN, AUGUST 22, NOYAN TAPAN. The team competitions of table
tennis finished on August 21 in accordance with the plan of the fourth
All Armenian Games. The team of Yerevan gained a victory in women’s
competitions. The representatives of Stepanakert and Vanadzor took
second and third places, correspondingly. As for men’s competitions,
the team of Gyumri gained the championship title of All Armenian
Games. The next two places were taken by the sportsmen of Yerevan
and Stepanakert.

BOBBY SANBRIA HONORS HIS ROOTS WITH BIG BAND URBAN FOLKTALES
by Joe Montague

Jazz Police, MN

A ug 21 2007

Big Band Urban Folktales Bobby Sanabria is a bandleader, a composer,
an incredible drummer and, most of all, an individual who believes
in giving back to the community and the jazz art form that he truly
feels grateful to be a part of. He was inspired as a young man growing
up in The Bronx of New York City watching the legendary Puerto Rican
bandleader and percussionist Tito Puente perform a free concert in
his neighborhood.

Never forgetting that experience and the fire that it lit within
him, Sanabria has, by his own estimate, performed thousands of free
concerts and spoken to the students of schools throughout New York
City’s education system.

The fruits of his efforts have been evident over the years, but
perhaps no more obvious than on his current CD, Big Band Urban
Folktales, where no less than eight different students whose lives
he has touched perform either as instrumentalists or singers. Six
former students appear in the orchestra, while Shareef Clayton and
her trumpet appear on the song, "Since I Fell For You." Singing lead
vocals on this track is Chareneè Wade, another former student.

Bobby Sanabria © Andrea Canter"I speak to the kids (in the schools)
about Latin American music, jazz, its history and performing it,"
said Sanabria. "You would be surprised how many of those kids come to
me ten or fifteen years later. Any students that I feel deserve to
will be featured in concerts or on the recordings. Chareneè happens
to be one of them. She graduated from the Manhattan School of Music
about two or three years ago with a Masters Degree in Jazz Vocal
Performance. Before that, she was an honors student at the La Guardia
School for the Performing Arts. She had been working around town as
a jazz vocalist, but she really never had a platform to showcase her
talent. When we were recording this song, I thought that she was
the one who should be singing it. She is more than qualified. For
me a jazz vocalist is not just someone who interprets the melody,
but it is someone who can scat and improvise. Chareneè can certainly
do that. She did a beautiful job on ‘Since I Fell For You.’"

The orchestration for the Buddy Johnson / Ray Santos "Since I For You"
is lush and brings back the big band sound in a way seldom heard today,
complete with a call and response between the members of the band and
Wade. Joe Fielder has created a gorgeous new arrangement and Bobby
Sanabria arranged the final montuno. Jazz venues and labels should
be lining up to book and sign Chareneè Wade. You should write that
name down and remember it because you are going to hear a lot from
this young lady in the future.

At times, it appears that Sanabria is on a one-man mission to reach
out to today’s young people and ensure that they feel connected with
the jazz music that he loves so much. "The biggest problems that
we face in jazz right now are record sales and the lack of radio
(airplay). That is because people in the jazz community never thought
that this would end in terms of popularity. They failed to think that
they had to connect with the youth. When I do concerts, you would
be surprised at how many young people come out of there with their
minds blown. They come up and ask, ‘Mr. Sanabria, where can I hear
more of this music?" Sanabria says, placing the focus on the music
in his statement, and not on himself.

"At this point in time if you ask a fourteen, fifteen or
sixteen-year-old kid in the streets of the United States what jazz
records they listen to, or what jazz artists they are listening to,
they would look at you funny. If you ask them what hip hop artists
they listen to, they would name off five or ten people, then rap to
you or recite to you some of the things that they learned from those
recordings. That tells me that if you can learn something from one
of those recordings, then they are intelligent enough to deal with
listening to good instrumental music that is done in a very creative
way. The fact is the jazz industry has failed to realize that, and
little by little every year, our sales have gone down. How do we
build up the sales in the industry? You have to get to the youth,"
says Sanabria.

Bobby Sanabria © Andrea CanterNow Sanabria dives headlong into a
discussion comparing music and culture of his youth with today’s
world. "I see myself as a revolutionary. I have a revolutionary spirit
that I inherited from the sixties and seventies. I grew up during
the Vietnam era in the United States. We had high school kids that
were very politically conscious. The apathy towards jazz reflects
the apathy towards everything in society today. Music reflects the
times that it lives in. I think the future of jazz is in what has
become known as world jazz music, particularly in Latin America,
because our rhythms are so infectious," he says.

Continuing with his thoughts concerning the influences of the
international music scene on North American jazz, Sanabria says,
"You are hearing a lot more jazz-oriented music coming from all parts
of Latin America. It is not just Afro Cuban-based rhythms, Brazil has
been a powerful force now, countries such as Puerto Rico and Venezuela
(are becoming more prominent). I just came back from Armenia and I saw
three groups over there that are combining jazz with Armenian folk
rhythms and Armenian folk instruments. If you closed your eyes, you
would think you were listening to Weather Report, only with different
drums that you may not have heard before.

There are those (in the jazz community) who will tell you that it is
not real jazz You get traditionalists who tell you that if it doesn’t
have a swing rhythm, bebop or whatever, that it is not real jazz. The
music is supposed to always be revolutionary, forward thinking and
absorbing from other cultures."

Sanabria applies the same thinking to new trends that are emerging
within the Afro Cuban jazz scene. Referencing Eddie Palmieri, he says,
"If you keep the rhythmic integrity of the genre, then you can do
whatever you want harmonically. That is why you are hearing out of
Cuban dance bands, what we call tipico, which means it is flavorful
in the traditional style. Then it goes off into a harmonic style that
is not normally heard in that kind of music."

"These new Cuban genres incorporate the drum set a lot. When you
incorporate the drum set, you have a wider range of vocabulary that you
can use. You can use funk rhythms, jazz, rock, R&B (and so forth). You
can utilize styles such as pica and timba. Timba is a very modernistic
approach to jazz. It is an amalgam of all of these approaches from the
past to the present. You get a lot of elements of funk in the music,"
he explains.

On Big Band Urban Folktales, the track "El Lider" pays homage to
Sanabria’s Puerto Rican heritage while honoring the new rhythms that
are emerging in that country’s music. "This is the first time ever
that we did a bomba in the grasima style. Grasima is one of the styles
of bomba, just like in salsa, you have mambo, son and cha-cha-cha. In
bomba, we have different rhythmic styles and grasima is one of them. We
had a full orchestra, five saxophones, four trombones and trumpets. For
the rhythm, we utilized the native drums that Puerto Ricans use,
the bomba barrels. Bomba barrels are emptied-out run barrels covered
in goat skins. They have a really deep, powerful sound. On all of my
albums I have included something from my Puerto Rican roots," he says.

Using a full orchestra to record a project such as Big Band Urban Folk
Tales is not an inexpensive proposition, so why did Sanabria embark
on such an ambitious project? "What drives you is the love of the
music. That is why although Buddy Rich could very easily have made a
successful living with a small group, his passion was the art of the
big band. There is no greater feeling than seeing or hearing a jazz
orchestra or a big band. It is the equivalent to, in the orchestral
world, the symphony orchestra. It is the time when you get to express
yourself as a soloist, accompanist, composer, arranger and leader,"
says Sanabria.

Sanabria has remained the jazz artist for the common man.

"Unfortunately, jazz has become the music of the culturally elite
and the very snobbish, among some musicians. It is not supposed
to be that way, it is the music of the people. It is ironic to me
(considering the roots of jazz) that it has now become this snooty,
elitist art form. I am totally against that. All of my recordings
are the antithesis of that. That is not to say that there is not some
deep thought going on, but besides the deep thought there is also a
visceral connection with the African American down south, the Puerto
Rican or someone from another island. As they would say, ‘Man, it’s
got to have some grease on it.’ It has to have something from deep
within that touches you on a visceral, emotional level," he says.

I have only been able to capture here a small portion of my wonderful
conversation with Bobby Sanabria at the beginning of July. To explore
the man and his music further you are encouraged to check out his
website and his current CD, Big Band Urban Folk
Tales from the Jazzheads label.

–Boundary_(ID_j1VWtA4llAgyI2CA5KMBlQ)–

I WILL NEVER RETURN TO KARABAKH AS A TOURIST

KarabakhOpen
01-08-2007 10:10:19

Hayduk and Aida Shamlian met in the late 80s in Canada, in a meeting
devoted to Arstakh.

But this was not the reason for their "adoration" of Artsakh. For
three years now Hayduk and Aida sponsor the children’s camp in Shushi.

They say they wait impatiently for the summer to arrive in
Shushi. "When I first came to Shushi, I was taken with the other
tourists to the sights, took part in interesting events held for
us. But when I saw the children living in half-ruined houses, I
decided never to come back here as a tourist. I returned to Canada,
and my husband and I worked out a project to set up a summer camp
here," Aida says.

This year thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Shamlian 150 children rested at the
Narekatsi cultural center of Shushi. Aida says the children played,
sang Armenian songs, danced Armenian dances and got emblems with
Mount Ararat and the Armenian flag.

"ARF DASHNAKTSUTIUN WILL SUPPORT CANDIDATURE OF SERGE SARGSIAN IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS," MANUK GASPARIAN IS CONVINCED

Noyan Tapan
Aug 16 2007

YEREVAN, AUGUST 16, NOYAN TAPAN. "Robert Kocharian is gradually losing
his power, as oligarches and officials support Serge Sargsian." This
opinion was expressed by Manuk Gasparian, the Chairman of the
Democratic Way Party, at the press conference, which was held on
August 16. In his conviction, the ARF Dashnakysutiun will support
the candidature of Serge Sargsian in the forthcoming presidential
elections.

After the parliamentary elections, according to Manuk Gasparian,
the opposition is in "knock-out". And the political forces, which
have united around the idea of nominating the candidature of Levon
Ter-Petrosian, the RA first President, in the forthcoming presidential
elections, according to the Chairman of the Democratic Way Party,
are merely hindering the unification of the opposition.

Manuk Gasparian also mentioned that the Democratic Way Party is for
the idea of taking part in the presidential elections with one common
candidate, however, he is sure that the issue of a common candidate
will not find a solution.

ECONOMIST TATUL MANASERIAN: NATIONAL MODEL OF DEVELOPING ARMENIAN ECONOMY SHOULD BE CREATED

Noyan Tapan
Aug 16 2007

YEREVAN, AUGUST 16, NOYAN TAPAN. Various models of developing the
economy proposed by international organizations do not work in Armenia
because the local expert potential is not used in developing these
models. Economist Prof. Tatul Manaserian expressed this opinion at
the August 16 press conference. For this reason, in his words, a
"national" model should be created.

According to T. Manaserian, more funds should be allocated to science
intensive branches with the aim of developing the Armenian economy.

Particularly, the total amount of budgetary and grant resources
allocated to the sphere of science in Azerbaijan (including allocations
for scientific developments of the military and industrial complex)
exceeds 12fold the respective index of Armenia.

A surplus of jobs can be created in Armenia in a short period of time,
which can be achieved through evaluation of the country’s economic
resources, identification and substantiation of its competitive
advantages, determination of guiding lines of economic development,
and based on it, management of financial resources and the expert
potential of local, Diasporan and international organizations.

T. Manaserian noted that Armenia currently supplies labor force to such
countries as Russia and Turkey, thus promoting the economic development
of these countries. As a result, imports of goods from these and
other countries into Armenia grow faster than exports from Armenia.

THIRD SITTING OF COMMISSION COORDINATING DEVELOPMENT WORK OF RA DRAFT MILITARY DOCTRINE HELD

Noyan Tapan
Aug 15 2007

YEREVAN, AUGUST 15, NOYAN TAPAN. The third sitting of the
interdepartmental Commission coordinating the development work of the
draft military doctrine of the Republic of Armenia was held in the
headquarters of the RA Armed Forces on August 15. According to the
information provided to Noyan Tapan by the RA Ministry of Defence, the
work done in the direction of the development of the RA draft military
doctrine was summerized, and observations, as well as suggestions of
the members of the commission were discussed during this sitting.

THE GREAT WAR & THE SHAPING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

PBS.org
ndnow/?campaign=pbshomefeatures_4_thegreatwar_2007 -08-14
Aug 14 2007

OVERVIEW

The after shocks of the earthquake we call the Great War are still
being felt today, in the 21st century

In countless ways, World War I created the fundamental elements of
20th century history. Genocide emerged as an act of war. So did the
use of poison gas on the battlefield. The international system was
totally transformed. On the political right fascism came out of the
war; on the left a communist movement emerged backed by the Soviet
Union. Reluctantly, but unavoidably, America became a world power.

The British Empire reached its high point and started to unravel.

Britain never recovered from the shock of war, and started her decline
to the ranks of the second-class powers. At the peace conference
of 1919, the German, Turkish, and Austro-Hungarian empires were
broken up. New boundaries were drawn in Europe and the Middle East,
boundaries — as in Iraq and Kuwait — which were still intact at
the end of the century.

Just as the war was ending, German Nationalists like Hitler gathered
millions who rejected the peace and blamed Jews and Communists for
their defeat. The road to the Second World War started there.

Even after Germany’s second defeat in 1945, the shadow of the Great
War was still visible. Then came the shock waves of 1989-91, ending
the "short 20th century," an era that began with the great war and
concluded with the collapse of communism and the reunification of
Germany in a robust European community. The German problem — so
central to World War I — appeared to be resolved. But other problems
have emerged that are disturbingly similar to those that plagued the
world in 1914.

WORLD TERRORISM by Jay Winter, Historian

"Terrorism was born well before the First World War. But its effects
became worldwide in 1914. The assassination of the heir to the
Austria-Hungarian throne created the diplomatic crisis that ultimately
led to the war. So it’s the provocation effect of terrorism that I
think was born in 1914.

In many ways the attack on the World Trade Center was a direct echo
of that provocation. The intention was to bring about a military
response that would in turn rebound against the power that responds.

In 1914 that was the intention, the intention was to force
Austria-Hungary into some kind of violent reaction that would
ultimately be to its detriment. And that is indeed what happened.

Whether or not the war on terrorism as a response to the World Trade
Center attack is detrimental to the United States, has yet to be
seen. But there is an idea that terrorism’s provocation was born on
the 28th of June 1914."

SERBIA EXPLODES AGAIN 80 YEARS LATER by Jay Winter, Historian

"There is no way to understand what happened in Serbia and Bosnia [in
the 90s] without going back to the extraordinary events on the 28th
of June, 1914 when the heir apparent to the throne [Austria-Hungary],
the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated.

A series of violent events followed that marked the civil war within
the Balkan States becoming even more violent in the Second World War.

And in turn, when the communist state of Yugoslavia unraveled in the
1990’s, some cynical politicians like Milosovich tried to go right
back to 1914. … So the sequence of violent events in the 20th
Century is like a fugue, with one instrument following another. And
in the Serbian case, each one is worse than the one before."

IMMIGRATION by Niall Ferguson, Historian

"The emergence of new members in the European Union has revived
anxieties that would have been familiar to anybody a hundred years ago
— of migration of Eastern Europeans to Western Europe — when many
Polish and Russian based Jews and other ethnic minorities were seeking
to escape from the relatively repressive regimes where they lived.

European politics are still in fact strongly influenced by
hostilities to immigration… And whatever the rhetoric of European
integration… the reality is that on issues like migration, national
governments act with their perceived interests firmly in mind."

BOSNIA & RWANDA GENOCIDE by Jay Winter, Historian

"There are two ways of looking at genocide. The first is in terms of
international warfare. And the other is in terms of domestic murder
on a grand scale. The murder of the Armenians is both in 1915. It
occurred in the context of total war, but it was also the policy of
an independent state to eliminate inhabitants of its own population.

Now this precedent of a state killing its own citizens is one that
Hitler used quite openly. And it is clearly what happens in Rwanda
as well.

What’s missing, and why it is difficult to make the contrast directly
is that the two genocides of the Armenians in 1915-16 and the European
Jews in 1941 to 1945, both were in the context of total war.

The two genocide’s of the 1990’s in Bosnia and Serbia as well as in
Rwanda, are not in the context of international war. But the first
two — the First World War and the Second World War — provided the
precedent for the elimination of neighbors, and for doing so in such
a way as to make it impossible to live side by side in the future."

U.S. MONEY POWER by Niall Ferguson, Historian

"1914-18 was one of the great watersheds in financial history. The
United States emerged for the first time as the rival to Great
Britain as a financial super power. Possibly even in some respects,
the United States overtook Britain. … It’s the point at which the
United States firmly ceases to be a debtor and becomes a creditor
nation — the world’s banker.

The fascinating thing, of course, is that that’s no longer true. We
live in a time when the United States has ceased to be a creditor. It
ceased to be a creditor in the 1980’s and became a world debtor. It’s
reverted to its pre-First World War situation of being an importer
rather than an exporter of capital. So the legacy of the Great War
in that respect seems largely to have expired and been expunged by
fundamental economic changes."

EUROPEAN UNION by Niall Ferguson, Historian

"The idea of European economic integration and even the creation of
a European Federation were in fact much discussed during the Great War.

… The European Union we know today would not have surprised
anybody who was seriously interested in the future of Europe in
1917. … The idea that it would have to begin with a Franco-German
pooling of economic interests, particularly in the Rhine rural area,
the pooling of ore and coal, iron and steel interests, was in fact
first floated immediately after the First World War by French policy
makers and industrialists. … But it took a Second World War to show
that this was the only viable way forward for Western Europe."

BAGHDAD 2003 – Making the world safe for democracy by Jay Winter,
Historian

"Baghdad 2003 has some shadows of the Great War… The first shadow
is the belief that the victors carry democracy with them. This is an
American idea from 1917-18. Woodrow Wilson believed that democracy
was inherently peaceful and dictatorships, the kind that ruled in
Germany in 1914, were inherently hostile and bellicose. By insisting
that Germany change regimes, there was a better chance of guarding
the peace of the world than if Germany had remained a quasi-military
dictatorship.

The notion that you can create democracy and therefore peace is Woodrow
Wilson’s. And George W. Bush is a Wilsonian. … one that harks back
to a period in which armed force brings democracy to those who are
suffering under dictatorship."

The Language of Mass Death by Jay Winter, Historian

"The language used to describe a totally unprecedented vision of mass
death is found in the Great War. Nobody had any idea what was going
to happen once war between industrialized countries broke out. … So
the impossibility of understanding what was happening and the ways
in which to refer to it in 1914-18 — and for years after — produced
all kinds of poems, novels, memoirs … September 11th is relatively
close to us. It probably is going to take years for people to work
out what it is that actually happened. … Traumatic memories can’t
be configured right away. … 10 years, 15 years, 20 years down the
line, some great works of imaginative literature and art will come
to tell us the meaning of these [9/11] events."

Future Use of Military Force by Niall Ferguson, Historian

"The world hasn’t moved that far from the age of the Great War because,
fundamentally, national interest is still paramount. But what has
changed is that European politicians have radically thought through
the way that they pursue the national interest.

And the biggest change … is of course that military power is of far
less significance in European politics than it was a century ago on the
eve of the Great War. European politicians are exceedingly reluctant
to use military power. …that is one reason why these former empires
like the French and Germans dislike the sight of other people —
namely the United States — using military power as self confidently
as the United States has done since September 11th."

What did we learn?

by Jay Winter, Historian

"I think we learned a great deal from the Great War. The first point is
that as soon as international warfare is launched, nobody can predict
the outcome. The second thing is that international war breeds civil
war, and civil war is uglier than international war because there
are no limits. We also learned that the technology of warfare expands
much more rapidly than the capacity of political leaders to control it.

And I think the final thing that the First World War taught us is
that the easy access of individuals to democratic procedures is very
fragile. Warfare suspends democracy. How high a price is victory?

That’s a question we owe to the First World War. And the question is
still with us today."