Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MA

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

History

Committee Chair

Robert Blobaum

Committee Co-Chair

James Siekmeier

Committee Member

Elizabeth Fones-Wolf

Abstract

This thesis seeks to find out how NATO military interventions in Kosovo, Libya and Afghanistan have negatively affected relations with Russia. In order to achieve the aim and hypothesis of the study, the critical geopolitical approach is chosen as a theoretical framework.;The schematic critical geopolitics conceptualization of Gearoid O. Tuathail is used as the method of research. This thesis mostly pays attention to three essential parts of the critical geopolitics: "formal geopolitics" (analyses of think tanks, specialists, etc.), "practical geopolitics" (the decisions of policy makers, official statements, documents, strategies and speeches) and "popular geopolitics" (media discourse and opinion surveys). The combination of these three elements allows for a determination of certain NATO and Russian geopolitical discourses towards crises in Kosovo, Libya and Afghanistan. In relation to these crises, NATO and Russian geopolitical discourses are assessed from very positive, positive, neutral, to negative and very negative. This approach provides an opportunity to see how both sides have scripted these crises and how over the long term NATO's military interventions in Kosovo, Libya and Afghanistan have influenced relations with Russia and affected the international order.;Moreover, descriptive method, discourse analysis and a comparative approach are used to scrutinize Russian and NATO's geopolitical discourses towards crises. The analyses of NATO and Russian geopolitical discourses show the hypothesis that different NATO and Russian geopolitical discourses towards crises in Kosovo, Libya and Afghanistan have led to reciprocal accruing disagreements is only partly correct. The crisis of Kosovo in 2008 marked the end of the Russian flexible policy towards NATO and a new beginning of a permanently hostile geopolitical discourse against NATO in Europe. NATO military interventions in Kosovo, Libya and Afghanistan have negatively affected relations with Russia, mostly in Europe. Mutual cooperation and diplomatic disputes towards crises in Libya and Afghanistan are of minor importance in comparison with NATO-Russian relations on the European continent. Consequently, Russia concentrates most of its geopolitical attention towards Europe.

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