Third geostrategic forum - GEOFOR

The war in Ukraine and the refugee crisis in Europe

War for territory, food, energy and population

Zagreb, 17 November 2023, House Europe

Organized by the Institute for European and Globalization Studies, digital think tank

ORGANIZER

The Institute for European and globalization studies

PARTNERS

Institute for migration and ethnic studies
Faculty of Philosophy, University of Split
European Parliament

GEOFOR 2023

Forum's definition, concepts and goals

Definition

The Geostrategic Forum was established in Zagreb in 2020 with the aim of analyzing and conceptualizing the results of the Mediterranean Agricultural Forum, the ICT Society Forum, and the International Energy Forum in the context of geopolitics, thus articulating the exposed public policies in the context of the new social paradigm in the global risk society.

The Geostrategic Forum is based on the present results of IEGS.

Concept

The Geostrategic Forum has as its basic assumption the fact that the reconstruction of the old geopolitical framework of the world is underway, and consequently that there is an attempt to establish a new one.

Within the new geopolitical framework of the world, at the beginning of the 21st century, there will be a new / different positioning of the EU in relation to the USA, China and Russia. In this context, the Geostrategic Forum is a place for discussions and analyses of the new concept of multipolarity in the world.

Within the new geopolitical framework of the world, the focus is on population, food, energy and ICT technology, and climate change in the context of a global risk society.

Goals

Promoting the importance of geostrategy / geopolitics in the context of the new social paradigm, both within the academic sector and in the general public, with a special emphasis on the public sector.

The Forum provides clear and articulated concepts and solutions to problems related to public policies of IT, energy, and Mediterranean agriculture, both locally and regionally and internationally.

The Geostrategic Forum is based on the premise of identifying key issues and providing a framework for politically independent discussions on public policies, strategic and security trends in 21st century geopolitics determined by various risks.

Synthesizing and analyzing public policy proposals of other forums from the position of geopolitics.

The first years, and now we can even say decades, of the 21st century showed us how geopolitics is experiencing a great return to our reality. After the unipolar comma of the first years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the events of this century were lined up one after the other as catalysts and hints of a change in the geopolitical epoch and order in which we live. We experienced the peak of these changes in the events of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian aggression against Ukraine. With this, for the umpteenth time, we have received confirmation that the social and reality paradigm has changed and that we are in a society of (permanent) risks.

From the above, we can conclude that knowing, interpreting and proactively acting on geopolitical processes is the foundation, but also the pinnacle of insight into reality. Especially it should be so from the perspective of those in positions of power. Because, as Émile de Girardin says, "To rule is to foresee, and to foresee nothing is to rush into ruin."
The geopolitics of the present moment shows us again, paraphrasing Winston Churchill, how we see it further into the future, the further we look into the past. We are victims, in Nietzschean terms, of the eternal return of the same, a return to the geopolitics of the 19th century, in which large national states, this time gathered around major civilizational-spatial axes, fight for their spheres of interest. It is precisely for this reason that geopolitics is imposed as the key to understanding processes that do not only take place here and now, but have their own historical course, and are transhistorical.

With this in mind, the third edition of the geopolitical forum will deal with the current issues of the Ukrainian conflict, its causes and consequences, and will try to provide an interpretive framework that will serve not only for understanding, but also for acting on the issue of current geopolitical forces and their consequences.

Forum's description

Panels

Panel 1
Geopolitics of the war in Ukraine: causes, history and conflicting rationalities of the multipolar world

The first panel of the 3rd Geophora starts from the assumption that any discussion about the causes and history of the Ukrainian conflict must start from the acceptance of the fact that the Ukrainian conflict did not begin on February 24, 2022. The genesis of this conflict has its stages that led to the current state; the annexation of Crimea as Russia's response to Euromaidan. Euromaidan itself as an attempt to concretely and practically direct Ukraine to the European and pro-Western path, etc. However, for a deep understanding of these phenomena and processes, and the current Ukrainian conflict itself, it is necessary to understand the historical processes that are still taking place in the background.

With this aim, the discussion and presentations on this panel will go in the direction of interpreting Russian aggression against Ukraine as a conflict through which Russian geopolitics wants to turn Ukraine into a key part of its "new Russian empire". In this geopolitical project, Ukraine is at the same time a buffer zone towards the West, but also a part of the "Russian" land that enters Europe most deeply, and serves as a projection of imperial power.
Equally, keeping in mind the emerging multipolarity, the panel will try to give a triple view of Ukraine and this conflict; the view from Washington, Brussels and Moscow, since, starting from the perspective of realpolitik, minimal mutual respect of all three views on the conflict is necessary and necessary for its end.

The first panel will also interpret the Ukrainian conflict as a paradigmatic conflict of a new, emerging geopolitical reality and a risk society in which large spaces/empires/civilizations clash on their borderlands, through proxy conflicts, with competing large spaces/empires/civilizations.

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Panel 2
Refugee crisis in Europe - one year later: emptying and filling the demographic pool

The second panel, which will deal with the topic of the refugee crisis in Europe, will start from two basic assumptions, one related to Europe and the other related to Ukraine. The first concerns the diametrically opposite attitude taken towards the refugee crisis in 2015 and the Ukrainian refugee crisis in 2022. This aspect should be viewed from a demographic and political perspective.

As for the Ukrainian aspect of the refugee crisis, bearing in mind the multidimensionality of the Ukrainian conflict, the starting point will be the fact that the Ukrainian conflict is a war for people in a demographic, but also in a spiritual-identity sense. It is about a conflict that does not only want to conquer territory and people, but also wants to reshape the identity and historical consciousness of the population of an area, with the aim of filling the demographic pool.
The demographic trends and movements of Ukraine, Russia and Europe will be analyzed as factors that determine the political attitude towards the problem. The emigration of the Ukrainian population opens up the opportunity for the settlement of the Russian population in the "liberated areas" and a definite change in the ethnic image of the area. On the other hand, depopulation trends among the Russian population itself seriously question the feasibility of such processes. From this fact comes the identity aspect of the war; denying the historical existence of the Ukrainian state, nation and people makes them "new Russians" and an already ready, usable demographic body.

The demographic issue from a European perspective will also be problematized, which offers Western European countries the possibility of filling demographic gaps with ethnically and culturally close populations. This, in turn, leads to further emptying of Ukrainian space and weakening of potential.
The question will also be looked at from the angle of the economic and energy crisis in which Europe is; many Europeans do not see the Ukrainian conflict as "their war" and are not ready to provide long-term assistance, at the expense of their standards. This attitude is a potential European social bomb.

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Panel 3
Aggression against Ukraine as a model of action in geopolitical miniatures

The fundamental question that will be addressed by the third panel, taking into account the main features of the current geopolitical situation, is the question of whether it is possible for the Ukrainian scenario to be repeated elsewhere in the world, based on the same ideological justifications. Those areas that represent geopolitical microcosms, where the civilizational differences of large areas are reflected in a small way, for example in the area of South-East Europe and the Balkans, will be looked at in a special way.
From a scientific, historical and geopolitical perspective, the panel will compare the Serbian world and the Russian world, where the former is a miniature of the latter, and was preceded by the methods and ideological imposition of the nineties, and will analyze the conditions under which a new conflict would be possible on "this spaces".

Starting from the assumption that we are in a period of rediscovery of the role and benefits of nation-states which, paraphrasing Charles de Gaulle, have no friends, but only interests and allies depending on the circumstances, the question will be raised, what would be the role and engagement of the "big ones", especially the USA and the EU, in some hypothetical conflict on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. Would the attacked countries get the Ukrainian treatment from 2022 or the Croatian treatment from the beginning of the nineties?

Following the same model, the panel will briefly refer to other crisis hotspots in the world, for example, China - Taiwan, which have the potential to greatly disrupt the economic, political and military relations of forces at the global level.

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Forum's director foreword

Mislav Vušković

The Ukrainian conflict, i.e. the Russian aggression against Ukraine, is an event of epochal importance. Its fragility stems not only from shock and astonishment over a new war on European soil, but above all from the fact that it is a concrete, painfully tangible manifestation of a change in the geopolitical paradigm and order.
This change is particularly painful and sobering for Europe and the European Union. If we freely define geopolitics and understand it as a projection of the understanding of the necessity of one’s own identity in historical time and space in combination with current circumstances and historical constants, we see that Europe unfortunately has nothing to do there.


After the Second World War, Europe consciously gave up its role as an actor in historical processes, and transferred this concern to the USA. The process of European integration and the passage of time took their toll and Europe ceased to be capable of historical thinking; some things, including a war on European soil, became unthinkable. Externally protected by the security umbrella of the USA, and internally intertwined by integration processes, Europe did not notice the emergence of a new geopolitical paradigm, the rise of historical nation-states/civilizations that, having taken root, reconciled and accepted their past, all its lights and shadows – something that Europe never did – embarked on a new historical course that is most plastically reflected in revived claims to new-old territories, resources and people.


The focal point of the concrete manifestation of all of the above is February 24, 2022, the emblematic date of the paradigmatic geopolitical turn.
Observing the phenomenon as evidence of the new social paradigm and the risk society in which we live, we hope for three aspects of the current situation that can be formulated as three questions:
1) Why did all this happen?
2) What about the people, the victims of that conflict?
3) If it happened in Ukraine, can it happen again elsewhere? Could it happen to us?

The third edition of GEOFOR will give answers to these questions, in the never more suitable environment of the House of Europe.

Mislav Vušković

The Ukrainian conflict, i.e. the Russian aggression against Ukraine, is an event of epochal importance. Its fragility stems not only from shock and astonishment over a new war on European soil, but above all from the fact that it is a concrete, painfully tangible manifestation of a change in the geopolitical paradigm and order.
This change is particularly painful and sobering for Europe and the European Union. If we freely define geopolitics and understand it as a projection of the understanding of the necessity of one’s own identity in historical time and space in combination with current circumstances and historical constants, we see that Europe unfortunately has nothing to do there.

After the Second World War, Europe consciously gave up its role as an actor in historical processes and transferred this concern to the USA. The process of European integration and the passage of time took their toll and Europe ceased to be capable of historical thinking; some things, including a war on European soil, became unthinkable. Externally protected by the security umbrella of the USA, and internally intertwined by integration processes, Europe did not notice the emergence of a new geopolitical paradigm, the rise of historical nation-states/civilizations that, having taken root, reconciled and accepted their past, all its lights and shadows – something that Europe never did – embarked on a new historical course that is most plastically reflected in revived claims to new-old territories, resources and people.

The focal point of the concrete manifestation of all of the above is February 24, 2022, the emblematic date of the paradigmatic geopolitical turn.
Observing the phenomenon as evidence of the new social paradigm and the risk society in which we live, we hope for three aspects of the current situation that can be formulated as three questions:
1) Why did all this happen?
2) What about the people, the victims of that conflict?
3) If it happened in Ukraine, can it happen again elsewhere? Could it happen to us?

The third edition of GEOFOR will give answers to these questions, in the never more suitable environment of the House of Europe.

Join us at GEOFOR 2023!