Documents / FOIA release

(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Central Intelligence Agency · 1995-10-01 · 205 pages · text from the file's own layer

This Central Intelligence Agency conference report, numbered RTT 95-10039 and dated October 1995, presents the proceedings of a conference held 30 September to 1 October 1993. The CIA's Geographic Resources Division sponsored the conference. In it, academic geographers, anthropologists and US Government officials examined ethnic conflict by region, covering Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and South Asia. The report also discusses what these conflicts mean for US policy. It does not deal with UFOs or unidentified aerial phenomena.

  • p. 50 …For example, Muslim Serbs and Muslim Croats never defined them- selves as a people. They never…
  • p. 51 …I think that’s very crucial to under- standing why the Albanians never claimed Kosovo. Of…
  • p. 62 …be taught as a second foreign language, never as the first, and d_) less information and…
  • p. 78 …It never was. It might be useful, instead, to view the Soviet Union as a colonial…
  • p. 91 …As such, the ability of states to get from their people what they want has never…
  • p. 92 …The peoples of Africa never chose what their bound- aries should be—they were imposed by…
  • p. 93 …I never would have sent them in the first place. I thought our job was to…
  • p. 109 …Most of the provisions of this agreement were never imple- mented, and Kurdish autononiy became a…
  • p. 110 …those remaining in Lebanon, that prospect was never accepted by Muslims. The absence of believable data…
  • p. 112 …the vast majority of them—who have never known democracy. Other hopes can be enter- tained…
  • p. 114 …But in this region we can never say never, as evi- denced by the recent gasp…
  • p. 116 …Although Sovietologists could never have predicted the rapid events that dismantled the USSR at the beginning…
  • p. 119 …The Chinese, in my opinion,‘ never take China for granted, culturally, politically, or otherwise. This is…
  • p. 120 …What is going on here? National identities, although imagined, are never arbi- trary but arise in…
  • p. 121 …be one reason why these categories have never been challenged. The very Confucian practice of the…
  • p. 123 …These ethnic identities are “imagined” in Ben Ander- son’s (1983) terms, but they are never…
  • p. 133 …Inter- vention in the cause of the exacerbation of ethnic conflict should never be justified. Intervention…
  • p. 141 …Sociocultural identities in South Asia have never been fixed. The corporate mobility of particular groups, some…
  • p. 147 …Although never posing a serious challenge to Congress, the Mahasabha was particularly influential in the period…
  • p. 157 …were always moderate and that the extremists never represented the Sikh rank and file. One fundamental…
  • p. 166 …These are the people who have never had any form of internationally recognized status and who…
  • p. 169 …ways to enter as illegal immigrants and never get counted. 1 I Another important point to…
  • p. 177 …The -French nation never managed to incorpo- rate the adjacent French-speaking Belgian Walloons or the…
  • p. 186 …The reason Armenians still hate Turks is that there has never been reconciliation. Similarly there will…
  • p. 204 …You are never going to have total agreement on mov- ing boundaries. In fact, hundreds of…
Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
mortality, are good indicators of a particular ethnic
group’s well-being. He also looks at how youth
bulges—when the 15 to 24 age cohort exceeds 20 per-
cent of a given population—-affect stability within
ethnic groups.
Dn Martin Kenzer, Associate Professor of Geography
at Florida Atlantic University, provides a review of
post-World War II ethnically driven refugee move-
ments and assesses the current refugee picture.
Dr: Lee Schwartz, Office of the Geographer, Depart-
ment of State, examines the linkage between forced
migration and ethnicity. He presents a typology of
forced movements of people and a geography of the
ethnic composition of such migration.
States, Nations, and Ethnic Conflict
Dr: Thomas Poulsen looks at how overlapping pat-
terns of states (sovereign countries) and nations
(groupings of peoples with common identities) affect
current affairs. He then examines factors that aggra-
vate or ameliorate ethnic conflicts, especially where
nations and states do not correspond, and presents
some political-geographic truisms that the United
States should consider in dealing with ethnic conflict
abroad.
Patterns, Trends, and Regional Comparisons
Dr. Marvin Mikesell suggests that some countries-—
such as Finland—have done a good job accommodat-
ing minority populations and that neighboring coun-
tries could learn from this.
In her discussion, Dn Mildred Berman relays the
importance of examining population trends.
Ethnic Conflict and US Policy
Dr. Jon Gundersen, Department of State, presents his
view that US foreign policy must take into account
ethnic conflict, which will be on the intemational
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agenda over the long term. Concentrating on Europe
and the former Soviet Union, he questions what type
of state structure can best protect ethnic groups in the
region. He concludes by suggesting that the problem
of ethnic conflict in Europe could be addressed
through a united, decentralized Continent governed by
mutually accepted rules of behavior.
Mr. Wade Hinkle, Department of Defense, reiterates
then Secretary of Defense Les Aspin’s view that eth-
nic/national conflict is one of the main dangers to
US national security in the post—Cold War era. He
then summarizes the key points of US national secu-
rity strategy: remaining engaged in international
affairs, preventing the effects of ethnic conflict, and
forming partnerships with like-minded democratic
countries.
Conclusions: Implications for the United States
and the International Community-—Problems
and Prospects
Dr. Stanley Brunn, Professor of Geography at the Uni-
versity of Kentucky, examines the state of the world
political map and itemizes six factors that will affect
global politics over the next 20 years: environment,
religion, secularization, sports, territoriality, and com-
munications.
In the discussion, Dr: Rex Honey calls for understand-
ing that oppressed ethnic groups have legitimate
grievances and for support of human rights globally.
Dr Harm J. de Blij, the concluding discussant, points
out that ethnic strife may be related to deteriorating
environmental conditions in parts of the world.
Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268

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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 205 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.