Conflict Studies

After completing this lecture students will have knowledge about theoretical aspects of the conflicts. In this regard, it will be discussed and analyzed the point of views of the leading international experts in the field of conflict studies

After completing this lecture students will become familiar with different aspects of the conflicts, particularly related to the number of conflicts in the world, the main differences between internal and external conflicts and main political conflicts, which are going on in the different regions of the World

After the ending of the lecture students will have the knowledge about main reasons for the emerging political conflicts and their categories according to the leading experts. Furthermore, the main characters of the modern conflicts, etc.     

The main approaches to understanding security - classical in the Westphalian political system of the world. The state from the moment of the emergence cared for maintaining sovereignty, i.e. the national security was understood initially first of all as prevention of external aggression. In modern conditions, this concept includes also the questions connected with the danger of internal destabilization. Due to the growth of interdependence of the world the problem receives further development within regional security and international security.

All three terms characterize state and Interstate relations. They are more often used in realistic and neo-realistic concepts.

At the same time as a starting point served situation according to which the power of the state necessary for the realization of national interests and influence on the international situation was defined first of all based on its military force, or, by analogy with computer terminology, on the base of “hard power”, but not based on culture, the strength of the authority on the world scene and some type of “soft power”. As a result, the problem of military strengths was central in international relations from both, practical and the research point of view.

The situation has changed at the end of the XX century. Experts in the field of economy and finance and also environment were some of the first who have paid attention to nonmilitary threats to security. The first group has started talking about an economic component of safety, the second that ecological disruption by pollution poses a huge threat to mankind on the national and global level. However, a controversy was caused by the fact, in which cases the ecological problems are caused by human`s activity and when the objective reasons. Also, how this problem can be resolved.

A Revolution in the field of new technologies became another factor that has influenced reconsideration of security concerns. As a result, non-state actors were capable to play a huge role in the field of safety which they didn't have earlier. This has brought to the understanding that it isn't enough to build concepts of security, to be based on the fact, that the threat can proceed only from other states or groups of states. With special evidence, it was shown by events of September 11, 2001, when the planes skyjacked by terrorists crashed into buildings of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, explosions of the train in Madrid and London, etc. Even though the defeat targets have remained the same, as well as were assumed by strategic doctrines of the leading states: the large cities, the central ministries, departments - the source of threats was extremely amorphous and uncertain.

At the end of the XX century many researchers including adhering to realistic views, for whom the emphasis on military aspects and interstate relations is characterized, have begun to speak about such factors in ensuring national security as education, development of the modern technologies, growth of economic power, drug trafficking, AIDS, etc. Within a neo-realism one of the most important works within such direction represented a research B. Buzan "People, states, fear" which has appeared in 1983 and where the limitations of the traditional understanding of security are shown (Buzan, 1983). Except for this author, the so-called "broad" definition of security concerns including not only military aspects, is connected with the names of several European researchers, in particular U. Beck (Beck, 1998). Along with work B. Buzan in the same year in the journal “International Security” the article of the American researcher R. Ullman was published. The author wrote that the emphasis on military security problems leads to the fact that other threats are overlooked, including the threats, which are coming from the inside of the state (Lebedeva, 2007).

In the modern period, the discussions concerning a ratio of military-political factors, from the one hand, and social and economic, ecological, information, and technological from another continue. Supporters of a “wide” approach to security problems point to the amplifying role of economic and other factors. Their opponents object: in this case, a security problem “is blurring” by many other aspects which are existed in international relations and world politics.

One more important question in the theoretical plan - a ratio of regional, international and global security. The last term sometimes is used to emphasize that a security concern has not only internal but the interstate measurement. Here also is no unambiguous decision.

In this regard, the problems about the ways of the harmonization of the national interests of the states – the content of the concept of regional, international and global security cannot be limited only by taking into account the national interests of the states. The coincidence of the national interests of the group of the states causes different types of regional and international unions, which are guided by the determined views (concepts) about the ways of the harmonization and protecting their group interests as a balance between each other, also in the relations with the third countries.

In the connection with it, all those questions of International and regional security, are closely connected with the problems of International Organizations. Under modern conditions among the institutes, which are engaged in providing international security, first of all, should be pointed out about United Nations. The significant role in security issues play also several regional institutions, especially in Europe, where they have rather accurate functions and responsibilities. First of all, OSCE, NATO. The main problems which are intensively discussed now, reforming of the UN, that to make its activity in the field of providing security and peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding more effective and also to fix the place and role of NATO in the European structures related to defense and security, taking into account the fact that this organization has been formed in the years of the Cold War with definite purposes and tasks.

The volume of the arms trade in the modern world is very impressive. So, by official American estimations, if their cumulative sale in the world was estimated in 1964 with an approximate sum of 4 billion US dollars, then in 1987 it has already consisted of 82,4 billion. And now, despite the end of the Cold War, traffic in arms hasn't stopped. Its main deliveries go to developing countries. Exactly there the most unstable political and economic situation is often observed.

The total amount from deliveries of arms to the period from 1991 to 1998, according to R. Grimmett, has exceeded 250 billion dollars, and three-quarters of those arms were acquired by developing countries. The leading role of the arms market is taken by the Middle East. As it is mentioned by R. Wittkopf and Ch. W. Kegley, if in 1967 deliveries of arms to the Middle East made 11% of the total number of deliveries, then during the period from 1991 to 1994 this figure had increased to 77%. However, with the appearance of the new “hot places,” the situation has changed. In 2019, the volume of arms sales in the world reached US$ 361 Billion.

A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a such level, where basic elements and responsibilities of a sovereign authority no longer function properly. A state is also able to fail if the government loses its legitimacy even under the conditions that it is implementing its functions properly. For a stable country, it represents the necessity for the government to be satisfied with both effectiveness and legitimacy. Likewise, when a nation weakens and its socio-economic conditions decline, it introduces the possibility of total governmental collapse. The Fund for Peace characterizes a failed state as having the following characteristics:

· Loss of control of its territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein

· Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions

· Inability to provide public services

· Inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community

General characteristics of a failing state include a central (federal) authority so weak or ineffective that it has an inability to raise taxes or take other steps for the providing national interest, and has little practical control over the biggest part of its territory and hence there is a non-provision of public services. After the development of such processes, widespread corruption and criminality, the intervention of state and non-state actors, the appearance of internally displaced persons and refugees and the involuntary movement of populations, radical reduction of the economy and military intervention of foreign countries can occur (Fund for peace, 2015).

Metrics have been developed to analyze the level of governance of states. The precise level of government control required to avoid being considered a failed state varies considerably amongst authorities. At the same time, the declaration that a country has "failed" is generally controversial and, when made authoritatively, may cause important geopolitical changes (Steward, 2007).

The general point of view on terrorism as a rare and relatively remote threat was challenged by the tragic events of September 11, 2001. The terrible incidents, visited on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the crash victims in Pennsylvania forced the International Community to confront a grim new reality: Terrorist Organizations had an appropriate resource for the executing catastrophic attacks almost in each region of the World, even without an arsenal of sophisticated weapons.

9/11 became the first turning point for the whole world to focus on the issues of national as well international security.

As for the most recent developments show terrorism is assumed to be the most significant “enemy” of the 21-st century.

US State Department listed 44 terrorist organizations in 2008 (Joshua S. Goldstein. Jon C. Pevehouse. 2010).

Today`s Boko Haram, Tamil Tigers, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah play very significant roles even in deciding the scope of the foreign policy of leading superpowers.

It is necessary to add, about the existence of states on the World political map, that fund and supports different terrorist groups and illegal armed formations in the different regions of the World. United Nations, by Resolution 39/159 “Inadmissibility of the policy of State terrorism and any actions by States aimed at undermining the socio-political system in other sovereign States”, condemns any actions of state-terrorism (UN, 1984).

In general, Terrorism represents one of the most serious problems which not only has become aggravated at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century but also has appeared, in fact, among the main threats to security especially in its new forms, which have several new directions. It is caused, first of all, by the level of technological development and possibilities to impact the world, therefore large-scale terrorist attacks can be conducted by a small group of people or even by one person. Secondly, in the modern world, the potential range of terrorist organizations (national and cultural symbols, government buildings, places of big congestion of people, etc.) and also types of weapon which can be used are various. The third, modern terrorists, or, by U. Lakyyuer's definition, terrorists of an era of postmodern, together with other criminal structures look for allies in public institutions that lead to corruption. The considerable sums are spent on bribery of officials and also the intelligence agencies, which are designed to prevent illegal activity.

Terrorism by itself is not a new phenomenon. It has been known since Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. In the 19th century, terrorism is connected with anarchical and also some nationalist organizations. By estimates of several authors, for example, R. Kidder, terrorism becomes an international problem since 1960th years. In the 1970-1980th years, the world faced a surge in terrorist operations in Europe (Lebedeva, 2017).

Despite the centuries-old existence of a terrorism phenomenon, in the theoretical plan, this problem is quite difficult to give in to definition. The matter is that the same actions are considered at the same time by the different parties as terrorism from one side and freedom fighting from the other side. For this reason, the attempts to define terrorism within the UN (and various criteria were offered by the USA, Great Britain, other countries) in general have not been crowned with success.

However, the fact that, first, it is politically motivated violent acts or their threat is undoubtedly important in terrorism definition, secondly, they are directed against civilians, and not just directly concerning the power. Concerning them, terrorist attacks for the realization of these or those political goals are conducted. Terrorism is substantially focused on the achievement of a psychological effect. Therefore, terrorists are, as a rule, interested in that their acts have found as much as possible extended coverage in mass media. The psychological effect has multiple focuses, including drawing attention to the organization and its purposes, demonstration of opportunities, population or its certain groups, etc.

Another important feature when determining terrorism is in what is carried out by the non-state actors. Therefore, any armed actions, let unjustified and illegal (for example, capture by Iraq of Kuwait in the early nineties), don't get under terrorism definitions. At the same time, the state can give support to the terrorist organizations (including financial or in the form of granting the territory for the terrorist bases, refusal of delivering terrorists to the other states, approvals of their actions, etc.). In this regard, there has appeared a term "State Terrorism". The USA, for example, even the states which, according to them, get to this category. However, the state in such cases practically never takes the responsibility for recognition in the assistance to terrorism, and to prove the state`s participation in the terrorist act is quite difficult.

The period of the beginning of the 21st century when the political structure of the world is in process of cardinal changes represents itself the convenient base for terrorism development. In modern conditions of globalization terrorists often act out of national borders. Therefore, it is being discussed about international terrorism, or transnational terrorism (that is more precise), which means the use of the territory or involvement of the citizens in terrorist actions in more than one country. And even though it is quite difficult to outline borders between internal and international terrorism as practically all rather large terrorist organizations have links outside national borders, nevertheless feature of the first is the fact that the challenge is thrown down not to the concrete state or group of the states, but the model of development of the world. Construction of transnational terrorist structures to the network principle and finding the structural division in many states of the world strongly complicates the fight against this threat.

Terrorist actions are not seldom included in an arsenal of the means of fighting by various ethnic, religious, and other groups, actually being a form of political struggle and favorable business. Among the different terrorist group's good connections, including military and commercial, are established. Some interact with the criminal structures, in particular, which are connected with the drug business. Incomes from the sale of drugs quite often go for the financing of acts of terrorism.

Special concern is caused by a possibility of access by the terrorist organizations to the modern types of weapons and weapons of mass destruction. So, in March 1995, the Japanese religious sect Aum Shinrikyo has conducted a terrorist attack with the use of nervously paralytic gas in the subway, as a result of which 10 people have been killed and about 5000 have been forced to ask for medical care. However, one of the biggest shocks was the actions of terrorists on September 11, 2001, when in the USA several planes, which were captured by terrorists, were directed to the buildings of the World Trade Center in New York and also to the Pentagon. One more plane crashed with passengers, but in this case, at least it succeeded to avoid the much bigger victims. Results of the attack were comparable with the destructive effect during the missile attack.

This act of terrorism has raised many security issues differently. Earlier many estimates have brought out the calculation of the time of flight of ballistic missiles. Now, this indicator is insufficient. The second moment is connected with the definition of a source of aggression. If before in strategic concepts one or several states' main threats were coming from the foreign states, then today to the list of potential attackers are included, terrorist groups. The international terrorists, on the one hand, have bases, as a rule, in various countries, with another directly and openly isn't connected with government institutions (if to exclude a possibility of creation of corruption). As it was noted, terrorists act as independent actors on the world scene. At last, threats are extremely certain: poisoning of water of the megalopolis or the gas attack in the subway can be done by civilian airliners, tomorrow. At last, the last major moment connected with lessons on September 11, 2001, and the governments of certain countries (even such powerful as the USA) and the international community, in general, were not ready to adequately answer. The tragic events in Beslan on September 1, 2004, connected with the taking of hostages in the school, have once again confirmed new parameters of modern threats: surprise (several minutes are absent even for preparation for reflection of the attacks), plurality, and heterogeneity of terrorist acts and also means of attack.

Another sphere of modern terrorism - cyberterrorism, including information attacks, is connected with a possibility of destabilization of work of computer systems and networks. Considering the role of such systems in the modern world, it is easy to imagine the consequences of the large failures in the work of transport, communication, power supply, governmental and municipal structures - so-called "Critical infrastructures” of modern society. The feature of cyberterrorism consists of the fact, that the threat of information terrorism is realized quite well by different international actors. According to one of the computer magazines (information Week), viruses and actions of hackers cost large businesses in only one 2000 about 1,6 billion dollars. In May of the same year in Paris, the meeting at the level of computer terrorism experts has taken place. They expressed opinions that the threat of cyberterrorism constitutes a danger for mankind, comparable with nuclear, chemical, bacteriological wars.

All this also induces the states to coordinate the actions in the fight against terrorism. Several international agreements, in particular, on providing safe civil air transportation and shipping (The international conventions 1963, 1970, 1988) have been adopted, for example; on the fight against the taking of hostages (1979); to the protection of nuclear materials (1980). International terrorism has received condemnation in 1985 on the UN General Assembly where the relevant Resolution has been adopted (Lebedeva, 20017). The question of the fight against terrorism was repeatedly raised at meetings of heads of states, including members of the G7.

Special divisions in the fight against terrorism exist in many countries. Coordination of national efforts is on the practical level carried out by different international institutes, including Interpol.

The concepts of "rich north-poor south" are widely used today to refer to the phenomenon, which consists in a significant polarization of the world along with the axis "North-south”. As a result, in the countries located in the northern hemisphere (developed states), the overall socio-economic level of life is significantly higher than in the developing countries in the southern hemisphere. Sometimes, although recently much less frequently, the countries in the “South” are much more often called "countries of the third world". This term was originally disseminated in the framework of neo-Marxism in the years of the Cold War when the world was divided into capitalist, socialist, and “other” countries.

About 20% of the world's population lives in the prosperous countries of the northern hemisphere. According to data provided by the United Nations Development Program for the beginning of the second decade of the XXI Century, they consume about 90% of all goods produced on the Earth. They own approximately 85% of the entire park of cars. They account for almost 60% of the total generated energy. And the incomes of their citizens exceed those who live in developing countries by 60 times or more (Davitashvili, Elizbarashvili, 2012).

At the same time, the growth of the population is observed in developing countries (here lives 85% of those who were born in 1960 and later). According to the World Bank, in such regions as Africa and the Middle East, the annual population growth is about 3% (Chitadze, 2017). The high tempo of population growth proposes the solution of such problems, such as education, health, and the creation of new working places. However, instead of economic growth and improvement in the social sphere, there is a decline in these areas.

In developing countries, the number of AIDS patients is increasing: Currently, they account for almost 90% of all HIV-infected people. Concerning the World Bank, such data is often given. In Africa, in the sub-Saharan region, where the situation is most difficult, every 40th adult is HIV-infected. Along with the AIDS epidemic in developing countries, there is a high incidence of hepatitis (2 million deaths annually), tuberculosis (3 million, respectively), malaria (1 million deaths with 300 million diseases annually), and others, including tropical diseases. The Health system in this region is at a lower level in comparison to developed countries. According to the World Health Organization - WHO, 75% of the world's population, living in developing countries, account for 30% of doctors within the first decade of the XXI Century (Lebedeva, 2007). To this, it should be added that the incomes of adults in these countries do not allow them to spend significant sums on medicines and medical care. As a result, even sharp respiratory disease can lead to death.

Lack of drinking water, shelter, food, and other vital funds are also typical for these countries. In some countries, for example in India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Brazil, etc. part of the population, especially in rural areas, not only doesn’t have water pipeline, but also has to daily overcome significant distances for drinking water, and this problem leads

to the spread of gastrointestinal diseases that lead among the causes of death (4 million deaths per year), as well as to the deterioration of the sanitary conditions of life in general.

At the beginning of the XXI Century, the World Bank cited figures that about 80% of all incidents in developing countries were related to the quality of consumed water. This results in the death of about 10 million people annually (Lebedeva, 2007).

The spread of diseases is facilitated by the low level of housing conditions. In one room there are large families and housing, for reasons of cost savings, is often built without taking into account seismic conditions, possible actions of monsoons, typhoons, etc. In developing countries, the percentage of homeless people is also significantly higher. The absence of a house is one of the most acute problems of the "global South".

Complicated sanitary and housing conditions are accompanied by a shortage of food supply. The percentage of people living in rural areas of developing countries is much higher than in developed countries. J. Goldstein cites data according to which in the developed countries about 70-80% of the population lives in the urban areas, while in Asia and Africa this indicator is not above 20%. Despite the involvement in the field of agriculture, approximately 800 million people in developing countries are chronically undernourished, as a result, they can’t perform even the simplest work. However, among those who rose a little above the extreme poverty line, a large percentage of people don’t get enough protein and vitamins. This is due to the need to allocate huge areas of agricultural lands under export crops: tea, coffee, cocoa. Even those cultures, which make good the deficiency of proteins (for example, soybeans) and could be used to fight hunger in their country, are used for export or for feeding the middle class (Goldstein, 2011).

Bad socio-economic conditions in developing countries lead to the fact that the average life expectancy in them is about 60 years (in the poor - 50, and in some, due to the development of AIDS epidemic is much lower), while in developed countries length of life is approaching 80 years. At the same time, more than 17% of newborn babies in developing countries do not survive until the age of five (in developed countries, this figure averages just over 1.5%)

At the end of the XX century, security concern goes more and more beyond interstate cooperation and disarmament issues. With the development of the globalization process, organized crime sharply became a more actual topic. According to several estimates, since the 1980s the number of criminal acts, having been carried out within organized crime, has increased by 5% annually (Chitadze, 2020).

Members of organized criminal groups gain huge income. By estimates, which were presented in 1999 the total amount of so-called dirty money in the world was from 500 to 1500 billion dollars per year, which was equal to 5% of the world GDP during this period (Lebedeva, 2007). In 2009 it was estimated to generate $870 billion - an amount equal to 1.5 percent of global GDP for this period (UNODC, 2010). As of 2016, Transnational Crime was a $1.6 trillion to $2.2 trillion Annual “Business” (Global Financial Integrity, 2017).

One of the fields of activity of organized crime is caused by the fact that several goods are not taxed. The illegal transfer of these goods from one country to another brings considerable revenue to the members of the groups of organized crime. Other areas of organized crime are connected with illegal arms supplies, illegal activity in the conflict zones, including recruitment of mercenaries, etc. Processes of privatization in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have also drawn attention.

This problem already holds a specific place because of the scales but has received an additional boost in connection with globalization and the openness of borders generated by it. Considerable streams of drugs go via post-soviet space from Asia, the USA faces the same problem from Colombia and some other countries in Latin America. In general drug trafficking within the second decade of the XXI Century, by different estimates, has increased tens of times, giving more than 500% of profit (Chitadze, 2016).

Fighting against drug distribution has become one of the global problems of the contemporary period. At the same time, their main production is arranged in countries with badly developed economies and a set of internal conflicts, with the military and quasi-military regime. The chief suppliers of opium poppy on the market today are Afghanistan and Burma today. By the estimates given by J. Goldstein, the production of opium from 1998 to 1999 has increased in Afghanistan twice and has made three-quarters of the world's production. More and more synthetic drugs which don't demand vegetable raw materials are widely adopted

Nowadays, hybrid war and its role in world politics is a very important and actual issue. In this subchapter, there will be a discussion of what hybrid war means in general, how it was formed and used throughout the time, its effectiveness, hybrid warfare as a new type of global competition, also hybrid war as an old concept, which acquired new techniques during the time.

Definition of Hybrid War

While talking about the role of hybrid war in world politics, it is significant to understand what hybrid war means in general. Hybrid War is a military strategy that employs political warfare and blends conventional warfare, irregular warfare, and cyber warfare with other influencing methods, such as fake news, violation of the conducting diplomatic methods, and foreign electoral intervention (Deep, 2015). By combining kinetic operations with subversive efforts, the aggressor intends to avoid attribution or retribution. Hybrid warfare can be used to describe the flexible and complex dynamics of the battlespace requiring a highly adaptable and resilient response. There are a variety of terms used to refer to the hybrid war concept: hybrid war, hybrid threats, hybrid influencing or hybrid adversary (as well as non-linear war, non-traditional war, or special war). It should be mentioned that there is no universally accepted definition of hybrid warfare which leads to some debate whether the term is useful at all. Some argue that the term is too abstract and only the latest term to refer to irregular methods to counter a conventionally superior force. The abstractness of the term means that it is often used as a catch-all term for all non-linear threats.

The rapid growth of dependence on information technology and its increasing development has given rise to a global system of systems. Within the information space, the inter-dependent communication networks, computer systems, and existing databases of the Internet infrastructure allowed for the creation of a new global cyber domain which, along with numerous advantages, has led to new threats. It is rather difficult to pinpoint the exact date of the invention of the Internet, although the idea of а packet-switched network (a digital inter-network communication method that groups all transmitted data irrespective of content, structure, and type into suitably sized blocks) originated in the early 1960s when the then-United States Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), later the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), made significant advances in the development of computer networks that could be linked together through what would become the Internet. The demonstration of the implementation of this idea dates to October 29, 1969, when a post-graduate student programmer at UCLA, Charles S. Kline, transmitted the first Internet message, “login” (New York Times, 1999). ARPANET then connected just two computers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Stanford University. Today, there are approximately 4,8 billion Internet users (World Internet Usage and Population Statistics, 2020). At the time, it was difficult to imagine that just four decades later, the global packet inter-connection network would become a significant challenge for security. The history of the creation of ARPANET rests on the establishment of the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1951 and the conception of the Intergalactic Computer Network introduced by the American computer scientist, Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider. Licklider’s “Galactic Network” concept defined a new type of social interaction, achievable via a global computer communication system, in which access to data and information was available to the general public. Even then, his conception represented the notion of today’s Internet. The adoption of the term Internet itself dates back to 1974 when the term was first used in Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine’s publication (RFC 675), Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program (Ronda, 2004). The names of American computer scientists, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, are associated with the creation of networking Transmission Control Protocol 3 and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) computer communication protocol suite and the first commercial system for an electronic mail system (Ronda, 2004). It is difficult to compare new discoveries and the technological advances made by humans over thousands of years. Nonetheless, it is at least safe to say that none of the technological advances heretofore have made such an impact on humanity so rapidly and on such a large scale as this technological achievement has. Internet technology has greatly influenced the broad masses of the world in several areas. The original purpose of its creation was scientific advancement and research. Therefore, the security of this immense system of systems became a critical challenge only at a later stage. The emergence of a new information space has also somewhat contributed to a unified perception of the world: a space where political boundaries do not exist.

After the collapse of the USSR, new geopolitical realities have been created in global politics, and especially in the post soviet space together with such positive events as the disintegration of the last totalitarian empire- the USSR. At the beginning of the 1990s of the 20th century, several political and interethnic conflicts have been emerged in the post soviet space, first of all in the Black Sea region. The main results were conflicts and wars on the territories of Georgia, Azerbaijan and Moldova interrelated with Soviet heritage.

When Soviet authorities were implementing the policy of “divide and rule”, in this way during the Soviet period they were secretly encouraging separatist movements in the different post-Soviet republics. Soviet authorities especially activated their actions at the end of the 80s of the 20th century, when during the period of “Perestroika” national liberation movements were developed in several former Soviet republics. Later, after the collapse of the USSR Russian Federation as a successor of the USSR for keeping under its sphere of influence as a post-soviet space continued the policy of Soviet authorities related to encouragement of separatism. In this case should be mentioned that if at the beginning of the 90s Russia did not recognize its involvement in the conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, former South Ossetia autonomous district, and Transnistria, then Russia implemented base of the principles of international law indirect aggression against Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Moldova. In August of 2008, Russia implemented direct aggression against Georgia by occupying 20 percent of the territory of Georgia due to the aggressive policy. Today utmost Soviet space exists so-called “four black holes” which stress to the national security not only the countries where uncontrolled territories exist but also create the problem for the whole post-Soviet space and Euro Atlantic area.

Taking into consideration the above-mentioned factors, the main purpose of the lecture represents a detailed analysis of the conflicts in the Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, Tskhinvali region, and Transnistria. In this regard, the purpose of the research is to analyze the historic aspects of the conflict regions, the main reasons for starting the conflict, the main stages of the conflict development, and perspectives of the conflict resolution. Concerning the novelty of the research, it is interrelated with a detailed analysis of the historic, political, legal, economic, and other aspects of each conflict in the Black Sea region.

Modern approaches to resolving conflicts largely stem from their features. At present, science and social practice, in principle, have sufficiently developed technologies for this.

Great importance to the procedures and methods of conflict resolution attaches to the UN. The Art. 33 of Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter states: "Parties involved in any dispute, the continuation of which could threaten the maintenance of international peace and security, should, first of all, try to resolve the dispute through negotiation, examination, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial proceedings, recourse to regional authorities or agreements or other means of their choice. " For active activities related to peacekeeping, the UN was noted in 1988 by Nobel Prize.

In the early 1990s, UN activity in the area of resolving and preventing open forms of conflict was intensified and the number of its peacekeeping missions was increased. Boutros Ghali, being the UN Secretary-General, proposed an expanded "Agenda for Peace", which details various procedures for the peaceful settlement and prevention of the conflicts. As a whole, in the second half of the 1990s, as well as in the early 2000s, the UN paid great attention to peacekeeping problems. For the activities in this area, the UN and its Secretary-General Kofi Annan were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001.

Since conflicts pose a serious threat to regional security, their settlement also lays in the focus of attention of many regional intergovernmental organizations, including the OSCE, AU, Leagues of the Arabic States, and others. Non-governmental organizations are also involved in resolving these issues, for example, "Doctors without Borders" (Médecins Sans Frontières), "International Red Cross". Nevertheless, the fact remains that the contemporary political conflicts - especially internal ones, with their ethnic and religious component, are extremely difficult to influence. They affect the deep value and emotional structures of the participants, therefore, as a rule, they require a long time for reconciliation.

Conflict resolution and prevention activities, depending on the situation, the nature of the threats, and the stage of development, include the main focus of activities - from mediation and monitoring the implementation of the agreement to military operations. Many of these technologies were developed and introduced into the practical field at the end of the 20th century. In general, the influence to the conflict for its peaceful end is affected by:

• Preventive diplomacy

• Peacekeeping

• Peacemaking

• Peacebuilding