10. The Self/Other Space and Spinning the Net of Ontological Insecurities in Ukraine and Beyond: (Discursive) Reconstructions of Boundaries in the EU Eastern Partnership Countries Vis-à-Vis the EU and Russia

The Eastern Partnership (EaP) is a joint initiative involving the EU, its member states and six Eastern European partners: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine (see Schumacher et al. 2018).

The European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) was launched in 2004 in the light of the European Security Strategy (2003) and the upcoming EU enlargements (2004 and 2007) dealing with the outlook of new neighbours after the enlargements and “stability and prosperity in Wider Europe” (Schumacher et al. 2018).

“[…] ontological dissonance is […] the clash [that] stems from the perception that the measures required to placate the ontological insecurity of each of the threatened identities are themselves in conflict.” (Lupovici 2012: 810).

States, over time, do create “national security cultures”—which are constructed by national mythologies of past events and relationships with historical friends or foes (Katzenstein 1996). It could be argued that the definitions of amity and enmity applied by Buzan and Wæver in the RSCT were meant to refer to that concept.

The taxonomy of these images reads as follows: ally (1: compatible, 2 and 3 equal), enemy (1: incompatible, 2 and 3 equal), dependent (1: incompatible, 2 and 3 lower), barbarian (1: incompatible, 2 lower, 3 higher) and imperialist (1: incompatible, 2 and 3 higher) (Alexander et al. 2005: 30).

Inspired by attribution theory, these images are, basically, a probability judgement within which, however, the principle of fundamental attribution error may occur.

This correlates with the intensity and form of NATO cooperation too.

As figures on the respective military expenditures from 2009 to 2014 show (SIPRI 2016; at constant 2011 prices and exchange rates), the military spending levels in terms of % GDP are around 3–4% for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia with slightly lower levels for Belarus(~ 1.4%) and Ukraine (~ 2%) whilst Moldova invests only around 0.3%. In terms of military expenditure as percentages of government spending, again, Russia (~ 10.7%), Armenia (~ 16.5%), Azerbaijan (~ 11.6%) and Georgia (~ 11%), on average, show significantly higher levels than Belarus (~ 3.2%), Moldova (~ 0.9%) or Ukraine(~ 5.5%). Although the aggregated spending level of all those countries together (from US$ 72 billion in 2009 to US$ 102.1 billion in 2014) remains very low in contrast to, for example, NATO (from US$ 1095 billion in 2009 to US$ 911 billion in 2014), or the aggregated spending of all EU countries (not on an EU level, from US$ 190 billion in 2009 to US$ 264 billion in 2014), the trend is opposing: whilst the military expenditure of NATO is decreasing, aggregated spending of all EU countries and the countries under scrutiny are increasing—observing a particular stark increase in expenditure in the latter countries. These figures showcase the dynamics of a security spiral with military build-ups.

See footnote 5 for a taxonomy and description of the images mentioned on the Table 10.2.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a territorial and ethnic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts, which are de facto controlled by the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, but are internationally recognized as de jure part of Azerbaijan (CFR 2017).