Yalta Conference

Meeting (Feb. 4–11, 1945), at Yalta, Crimea, USSR, of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. Most of the important decisions made remained secret until the end of World War II for military or political reasons; the complete text of all the agreements was not disclosed until 1947. The Yalta conferees confirmed the policy adopted at the Casablanca Conference of demanding Germany’s unconditional surrender. Plans were made for dividing Germany into four zones of occupation (American, British, French, and Soviet) under a unified control commission in Berlin, for war crimes trials, and for a study of the reparations question. Agreement was also reached on reorganizing the Polish Lublin government (supported by Stalin) “on a broader democratic basis” that would include members of Poland’s London government-in-exile, which the Western Allies had supported. The conferees decided to ask China and France to join them in sponsoring the founding conference of the United Nations to be convened in San Francisco on Apr. 25, 1945; agreement was reached on using the veto system of voting in the projected Security Council. Future meetings of the foreign ministers of the “Big Three” were planned. The USSR secretly agreed to enter the war against Japan within three months of Germany’s surrender and was promised S Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and an occupation zone in Korea. The secret agreement respecting the disposal of Japan’s holdings also provided that the port of Dalian (Dairen) should be internationalized, that Port Arthur should be restored to its status before the 1904–5 Russo-Japanese War as a Russian naval base, and that the Manchurian railroads should be under joint Chinese-Soviet administration. China later protested that it was not informed of these decisions concerning its territory and that its sovereignty was infringed. The United States and Great Britain also agreed to recognize the autonomy of Outer Mongolia, and to admit Ukraine and Belorussia (Belarus) to the United Nations as full members. The Yalta agreements were disputed even before the Potsdam Conference later in 1945. The subsequent outbreak of the cold war and Soviet successes in Eastern Europe led to much criticism in the United States of the Yalta Conference and of Roosevelt, who was accused of delivering Eastern Europe to Communist domination.

Yalta Conference: Big Three Meeting

By Credo Reference, on February 4th, 2011

Today’s featured Topic Page is about the Yalta Conference, the second Big Three wartime meeting during World War II. The conference was held on February 4, 1945, and was attended by the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin. The purpose of the Yalta Conference was to discuss the postwar reorganization of Europe and to develop a plan of action for each country’s involvement in the war. Click here to visit the Yalta Conference Topic Page and read all about what the meeting accomplished or read an excerpt from the page and brief summary of the event below.

Many of the decisions made at the Yalta Conference were kept secret until the conclusion of the war and were only disclosed in the late 1940′s. Some of the decisions that came from the conference were straight-forward: the leaders decided that they would call for Germany to unconditional surrender and agreed to divide the country into four zones (American, British, French, and Soviet) with a unified Berlin. However, there were several controversial concessions made during the Yalta Conference as well. For example:

…The USSR secretly agreed to enter the war against Japan within three months of Germany’s surrender and was promised S Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and an occupation zone in Korea. The secret agreement respecting the disposal of Japan’s holdings also provided that the port of Dalian (Dairen) should be internationalized, that Port Arthur should be restored to its status before the 1904–5 Russo-Japanese War as a Russian naval base, and that the Manchurian railroads should be under joint Chinese-Soviet administration. China later protested that it was not informed of these decisions concerning its territory and that its sovereignty was infringed…

*Lenin once said of them: “We shall support the Social Democrats like a rope supports a hanging man”

United States of Europe

The member states of the European Union do have many common policies within the European Union (EU) and on behalf of the EU that are sometimes suggestive of a single state. It has a common civil service (the European Commission), a single High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, a common European Security and Defence Policy, a supreme court (European Court of Justice — but only in matters of European Union law), a peacekeeping force (Eurofor), and an intergovernmental research organisation (the EIROforum with members like CERN). The euro is often referred to as the “single European currency”, which has been officially adopted by seventeen EU countries while seven other member countries of the European Union have linked their currencies to the euro in ERM II. In addition a number of European territories outside the EU have adopted the euro unofficially.

The EU, however, does not have a single constitution, a single government, a single foreign policy set by that government, a single taxation system contributing to a single exchequer, or a single military.

Several pan-European institutions exist separate from the EU. The European Space Agency counts almost all the EU member nations in its membership, but it is independent of the EU and its membership includes nations that are not EU members, notably Switzerland and Norway. The European Court of Human Rights (not to be confused with the European Court of Justice) is also independent of the Union. It is an element of the Council of Europe which, like ESA, counts EU members and non members alike in its membership.

At present, the European Union is a free association of sovereign states designed to further their shared aims. Other than the vague aim of “ever closer union” in the Solemn Declaration on European Union, the Union (meaning its member governments) has no current policy to create either a federation or a confederation. However, in the past, Jean Monnet, a person associated with the EU and its predecessor the European Economic Community did make such proposals. A wide range of other terms are in use, to describe the possible future political structure of Europe as a whole, and/or the EU. Some of them, such as United Europe, are used often, and in such varied contexts, but they have no definite constitutional status.

In the United States of America, the concept enters serious discussions of whether a unified Europe is feasible and what impact increased European unity would have on the United States of America’s relative political and economic power. Glyn Morgan, aHarvard University associate professor of government and social studies, uses it unapologetically in the title of his book The Idea of a European Superstate: Public Justification and European Integration. While Morgan’s text focuses on the security implications of a unified Europe, a number of other recent texts focus on the economic implications of such an entity. Important recent texts here include T. R Reid’s The United States of Europe and Jeremy Rifkin’s The European Dream. Neither the National Review nor theChronicle of Higher Education doubt the appropriateness of the term in their reviews

Future superpower

Main article: European Union as a potential superpower

The United States of Europe is widely hypotheticised, fictionalised, or depicted as a superpower as powerful as or more powerful than the United States of America. Some people such as T.R. Reid, Andrew Reding, and Mark Leonard, among others, believe that the power of the hypothetical United States of Europe will rival that of the United States of America in the 21st century. Leonard cites seven factors: Europe’s large population, Europe’s large economy, Europe’s low inflation rates, Europe’s favourable climate,Europe’s central location in the world, the unpopularity and perceived failure of American foreign policy in recent years, and certain European countries’ highly developed social organization or quality of life (when measured in terms such as hours worked per week and income distribution) .^[16] Some experts claim that Europe has developed a sphere of influence called the Eurosphere.

A small power

Norwegian foreign policy scholar and commentator Asle Toje has argued that the power and reach of the European Union more closely resembles a small power.^[17] In his book The EU as a small power he argues that the EU is a response to and function of Europe’s unique historical experience in that the EU contains the remnants of not one but five past European orders. Although the 1990s and early 2000s have showed that there is policy space for greater EU engagement in European security, the EU been unable to meet these expectations.^[18] The author express particular concerns over the Union’s security and defense dimensionCSDP where attempts at pooling resources and forming a political consensus have failed to generate the results expected. These trends, combined with shifts in global power patterns, are seen to have been accompanied by a shift in EU strategic thinking whereby great-power ambitions have been scaled down and replaced by a tendency towards hedging vis-à-vis the great powers. The author uses the case of the EUFOR intervention in Darfur and Chad to illustrate that the EU’s effectiveness is hampered by aconsensus–expectations gap, owing primarily to the lack of an effective decision-making mechanism. In his view, the sum of these developments is that the EU will not be a great power, and is taking the place of a small power in the emerging multipolar international order

Franz Josef Strauss

Herbert W. Armstrong of the Radio Church of God (later renamed Worldwide Church of God), had prophesied the coming of a United States of Europe before the close of World War III, and he later said it might be the German conservative politician Franz Josef Strauss as its future dictator, but he wasn’t definite. (Strauss had written a book titled The Grand Design, in which he set forth his views of the future of Europe).^[19] Strauss seemed to play along with this portrayal, by becoming a guest of Armstrong in 1971 in his home and at his Ambassador College campus in Pasadena, California where he even agreed to appear on The World Tomorrowtelevision programme. According to a document written by Armstrong in 1983, he became lasting friends with Strauss, but he could not understand why Strauss had returned the friendship

United Front

Syrian dissidents form new united front

By Jonathan HeadBBC News, Istanbul

The announcement to form a Syrian National Council was made in the Turkish city of Istanbul

Continue reading the main story

Syria Crisis

• Cracks showing
• Why the world has waited
• Who are the shabiha?
• Deadlock as pressure builds

Six months after they started their uprising, Syrian opposition groups have for the first time agreed on a single body to represent them.

Meeting on the outskirts of Istanbul, a number of the most prominent dissidents living in exile announced the establishment of a Syrian National Council with 140 members.

“It’s a kind of national assembly and it will have to give its voice on any major decisions,” said spokeswoman Basma Qadmani.

“There will be an executive body, too, and this will be the interlocutor for foreign governments.”

We have been here before, however.

On 29 August, after another opposition meeting in Istanbul, they announced the creation of a national council, this one with 94 members.

Some of those chosen to be on the council expressed surprise and dissociated themselves from it. Other groups complained that they were not included.

Then there was the Conference for Change in the Turkish resort of Antalya in June. That created a 31-member “advisory committee”, whose role since then has been a mystery.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

The credibility of the council relies on support from inside”

Basma QadmaniOpposition spokesman

One activist in Istanbul sheepishly described these as “trial runs”, adding: “We lack experience.”

The contrast with Libya is striking. There, the National Transitional Council was set up just two weeks after the uprising in Benghazi.

But conditions in Syria are far more challenging.

At no time has the opposition been able to take control of a part of the country, as it did in Libya.

The Syrian protests began in the southern city of Deraa and spread, but they have been organised locally with limited co-ordination, and any large protests have been met by a heavy-handed military response.

There was nowhere inside the country where a single opposition body could have been set up.

This time, say the organisers, lessons have been learned, and the new national council does enjoy the support of every significant dissident group.

Anti-government protests began in the southern city Deraa

“The focus was on the inside… because the credibility of the council relies on support from inside,” says Basma Qadmani.

“And we did not announce the council until we had the support from the key forces inside Syria.”

The organisers of this national council say they spent more than a month mapping out all the different political groups operating inside and outside Syria, and from that drew up a list of around 700 names.

From that list, using agreed criteria, they say they have selected 140 council members of whom about half will be from inside the country.

The new council will base itself on five core principles:

• The overthrow of the regime and the continuation of the organs of state through legitimate means
• The peaceful continuation of the revolution
• Protecting national unity
• Loyalty to the principles and goals of the revolution
• Establishment of a civilian state that guarantees freedom based on democracy and pluralism.

Whether this effort is more successful than its predecessors will depend on the reaction of the activists inside Syria, especially the Local Co-ordination Committees (LCCs) and the Syrian Revolution Co-ordination Union, which have become the most prominent among those organising protests.

It will depend on the Muslim Brotherhood, which is represented within the council, and it will depend on how successful the council is in its goal of setting aside the huge cultural and political differences among the protesters.

Non-violenceSome LCCs have recently talked about taking up armed struggle against the Assad government. The council’s organisers, however, believe non-violence should remain a core principle.

“You’re talking about a non-ideological movement,” says Yaser Tabbara, a US-based lawyer who helped to chose the members of the new council.

“When they seek freedom, it is the freedom to choose their representatives, it is the freedom to create their own economic opportunities, it is the freedom to have a highly qualified government.”

The new council will be based in Istanbul – a mark of how important Turkish government support now is – but it will have representative offices in several other countries.

Only about half of the 140 members have so far been named. Some working inside Syria will remain anonymous to protect them.

Committees will be set up to manage day-to-day work, like diplomacy.

The idea is that from now on, when foreign governments want to talk to the Syrian opposition, they will know whom to call.

bbc.co.uk