Southwestern Leadership Camp: Fill & Download for Free

I served in both formations, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosovo (in Albanian: Forcat e Armatosura e Republikes e Kosoves, or short, FARK) and the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA or, in Albanian, Ushtria Clirimtare e Kosoves, UCK.It sometimes happens that one country has more than one military organization fighting the war. There were, for example, the Croatian Army (HV) and the Croatian Defense Forces (HOS) in the Croatian War of Independence or the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) and the Waffen-SS in WWII.There were many differences between the FARK and the KLA, but the two biggest ones were their political ideology and military strategy:The KLA was initially founded in the early 1990s by a Marxist party, the LPK (Levizje Popullore e Kosoves). The FARK, on the other hand, was rather right-wing: it was founded at the beginning of the war (thus years after the KLA) by the LDK, the political party of Kosovo’s first president Ibrahim Rugova.The KLA operated mainly inside of Kosovo, first by attacking Serbian police stations and later by conducting a guerrilla war against the Serbian occupiers.The FARK’s “strategy” was the opposite: they wanted to arm and train a conventional army in neighboring Albania and then frontally assault the Serbian Armed Forces and conquer Kosovo. There were only a few FARK units inside of Kosovo and all of them deserted from the frontlines and fled to Albania.The problem with the FARK’s concept was that the war was already going on and hundreds of Albanian villages were burning in Kosovo. There was no time to raise a military force that would have been strong enough to confront the Serbs in a conventional conflict.This was also the reason why I left the FARK. I went there at the beginning of the war, but after I had some talks with their leader (and, at the same time, minister of defense) Ahmet Krasniqi, I quickly understood that their strategy was nonsense and joined the KLA.To make matters worse, FARK took away resources from the KLA. Weapons that were bitterly needed in Kosovo ended up in FARK training camps in Northern Albania. In addition to this, the FARK had a lot of professional former Yugoslav army officers in its ranks (and paid them handsomely) while the KLA often lacked competent leadership.To say that these two organizations were only rivals is an understatement: they were enemies. The longer the war went on, the more soldiers left the FARK and joined the KLA. These young men and women wanted to fight and not spend the war in a safe place in Albania.Weakened, the FARK ultimately had no other choice than to put all of its units under the command of the general staff of the KLA. Many FARK units were integrated into the KLA’s operational zones, for example, in the Southwestern Dukagjini Zone, Brigades 131, 132, and 133 were the (original) KLA brigades, while 134, 135, and 136 were former FARK units.Many of the FARK soldiers never entered Kosovo, though. They joined the so-called 138 Brigade that was operating in Albania near the border to Kosovo. After the war, they claimed that they had fought in the so-called Battle of Koshare, but in reality, there wasn't much fighting in this area.At the end of the war, there was practically only one fighting formation left: the KLA.After the war, some right-wing politicians in Kosovo tried to give to the FARK a bigger role than it really had, mainly for political reasons: it looks good when you have some liberation fighters in your political party and it brings you votes. The vast majority of the people of Kosovo, however, knows quite well who liberated them from the enemy:The KLA and NATO.

I am a Chinese citizen. As a journalist, I follow closely most of the world affairs and have a bit of my own understanding on geopolitics, diplomacy, international relations, etc. But of course my understandings are based mostly from media reports and academic research, so I would not claim I am totally objective and unbiased.Even before Trump came into the Oval Office, the United States of America had already been a divided nation, its democracy had been branded as “democracy manipulated by interest groups.” It had been a “flawed democracy.”Maybe Americans themselves had also realized this, so they thought it’s time for a change. And Trump came at the right time, so he is now in the White House.Since he is elected as the President under a democratic system, voters cast their votes by their own decisions. There must be a portion of them benefiting from Trump’s taking office. So it’s not necessary to “feel sorry” for them.As for those who are against Trump, especially, from “the Establishment Camp”, do we need to “feel sorry” for them? As an ordinary Chinese, I don’t think I am on a superior mentality to feel sorry for those “US elites.”Chinese President Xi Jinping (2nd R) and his wife Peng Liyuan (1st R) welcome U.S. President Donald Trump (2nd L) and his wife Melania Trump at the Palace Museum, or the Forbidden City, in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 8, 2017. They had an informal afternoon tea in the Baoyun Building, also known as the Hall of Embodied Treasures, in the southwestern corner of the Forbidden City. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)As for China, as a nation, does it “feel sorry” for Americans? I don’t know. Maybe not, China is too busy to develop itself. But of course, if people of other nations are really in need of China’s helping hand, China would be glad to offer, but on the basis of China’s Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, namely,Mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.Mutual non-aggression.Mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs.Equality and cooperation for mutual benefit.Peaceful co-existence.Turn back to Trump, is he a disaster to the US? Personally, if I were an American, I might prefer such a “selfish” president -- he is trying to protect our own interests, to bring more benefits to us. He is, sort of “a hen trying to protect her chicks, to get as many worms as possible for her chicks, and if anyone is blocking on her way, she will just fight back.”But how about the world order? How about America’s allies? How about China? He could be disastrous. But as Trump always believe, opportunities lie in crises.For China, he is a double-edged sword. But personally, I would rather call him “a gift” for China. He is tearing down today’s world order, he is pushing away US’ traditional allies, he is creating new enemies for the US.But today’s earth has already become a global village, as villagers, we have interwoven deeply with each other. There must be someone to fill in the geopolitical blank left with US’s shrink, on its own initiative.China has been seeking a bigger role in the world arena, but with too many hurdles previously, because of the ideological confrontation between the West and the East, between capitalism and socialism. But now, ideology is no longer the rallying bugler of the West, and the US is withdrawing its geopolitical might.But, we can see China is consolidating its traditional friendly relations with the African nations, China and Russia have been maintaining brotherly relations for years and are forging even tighter relations recently, the EU is walking closely towards China, China-Lat-America are further deepening cooperation.China’s neighboring relations have become much smoother recently: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Wuhan, central China in April, and will visit China again early next month in Qingdao; Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is currently (May 8-11, 2018) in Japan, and he is the first Premier to visit Japan in 8 years.What’s more eye-catching is DPRK leader Kim Jong-Un’s two surprise visits to China in a rather short period of time -- a bit more than 40 days. This shows how important China is in resolving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.We can’t say all these are because of Trump, but no one would deny that an American President like Trump is actually transferring the global leadership to China, whether he means it or not.But as a Chinese, I sincerely hope even if China one day takes the leading role in the world arena, China would draw lessons from the US, and do not behave like a world cop, instead, do what the government advocates -- to build a community of shared future for mankind.

Various, differing reasons prevented those three from calling under the grip of Communism until the next two decades (or in Finland’s case, never). By other Russian Imperial territories, we’re referencing Ukraine, Belorussia the Caucasus and Central Asia. The rest are considered part of Russia proper.For clarity, the Soviet Union, as noted by other answers here, didn’t officially exist yet. Due to the ongoing Russian Civil War, the Whites, while severely losing the war, were still occupying the majority of the Russian Far East and parts of Central Asia. The Bolsheviks weren’t ready yet to declare total victory over their anti-communist opponents and plus were still trying to “liberate” some of their former territories such as Poland.Map of Europe in 1920. The Russian Civil War and the Turkish War of Independence rage on during this period.Central Asia is the easiest to start off with and answer. Central Asian muslims rose up against Russian rule in the Basmachi Revolts; specifically, Turkmenistan tried to throw off the yoke of Soviet rule and was assisted by the White Army due to the fact that the Communists were on the verge of victory and the Whites needed all the support they could get. However, the Soviets gave up some concessions to the muslims (mainly cultural, some economic and political ones too) that enabled the Muslims in Central Asia to tolerate Soviet rule, despite the fact that it was a de facto atheist state. It should also be noted that the Soviets vastly outnumbered the Central Asian rebels throughout the entire conflict.The Caucasus is somewhat confusing for me due to weaker knowledge. I’m going to admit, all I know about Armenia and Azerbaijan during this post-WWI period is that the Ottoman Turks occupied the area after Tsarist Russia collapsed and were eventually kicked out by the British and the native populaces. However, the British later withdrew and the Soviets invaded all three Caucasus states. What I do know is that the Georgians resisted the most but due to Soviet numerical superiority they were crushed.The Ukrainians are the most interesting cases. The Germans created the Ukrainian state (which hadn’t existed since the 1700s) but the majority of the occupying German troops retreated in 1918–1919 after the final defeat of Imperial Germany at the hands of the Western Allies. This left Ukraine in chaos as two rival governments rose. One in Kiev controlled Western and Central Ukraine and called itself the “Ukranian Peoples’ Republic” whereas the one in Kharkov declared itself the “Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic”.The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk inadvertently gave new life to various states that had not existed for centuries.Thus began the Ukrainian War for Independence, which was basically Ukraine vs Poland vs Soviet Ukraine + Soviet Russia. In essence, Ukraine failed to become an independent state because of two major factors. First and foremost it had too many Pro-Russian/Pro-Soviet sympathizers who helped support the Soviet Union’s reconquest of Ukraine. Second, it barely had any foreign aid/support after the Central Powers collapsed. When the Germans and Austro-Hungarians were around, the Bolsheviks basically had no chance against Ukraine but once the Central Powers collapsed Ukraine and Poland had to try to fight off the Communists together, but the Poles gave up on the Ukrainians (who had lost most of their country by 1920) and signed off the Treaty of Riga to preserve their independence (it would last for less than two decades).So what about Finland, the Baltic States and Poland?Finland is the most comparable to Ukraine, in that there was a strong Pro-Bolshevik camp in Finland that wanted to join the Soviet Union as a SSR (Socialist Soviet Republic). Tens of thousands of Finnish Reds fought to make Finland a Communist country, while a nearly equal amount of Finnish Whites fought to make Finland an independent, anti-Communist nation.What made Finland different from Ukraine was that first and most importantly, the Finns had the leadership of Mannerheim, arguably the greatest Finnish military leader in the nations history. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief and directed the Finnish military forces to crush the Red Finns and drive out the Soviet invaders. Second and importantly, despite opposition from Mannerheim, the Germans decided to deploy a division or two into Finland, which arguably helped lead to the Soviet position’s collapse as the Germans overran Southwestern Finland and seized Helsinki. The White Finns enjoyed much foreign support in the conflict and that helped turn the tide against the Red Finns.Mannerheim during the early years of the infant Finnish RepublicLatvia owes its short period of independence to Estonia, and Lithuania to Poland. The Estonians bore the brunt of the fighting against the Soviets and the German Freikorps that attempted to suppress local independence movements in favor of establishing a German Baltic state. The Estonians practically crushed the Soviets between the Luga and Narva Rivers in late 1919 and discouraged them from making any further attempts to reconquer Estonia. The Estonians and Latvians also achieved a decisive victory over the German Freikorps at Cesis, which led to the evacuation of the German forces in Latvia and their total expulsion from the country.Orange is German occupied Latvia, Pink is Soviet occupied Latvia and Yellow/Purple are the Estonian and Latvian armies.Poland is the most famous of all these mentioned nations however. The Poles and the White Ukrainians had fought against the Red Ukrainians and the Soviet Russians for years and at one point both Minsk and Kiev fell under Polish control. However, in the end the Kiev Offensive was a failure as the Ukrainian state could not handle the combined attacks of their red counterparts and the Russians and soon disintegrated.After months of fighting, the Soviets were crushing the Poles and it appeared that Bolshevism might actually destroy the infant Polish state and incite a worldwide Communist revolution (or at least formally enter Central Europe). The Poles were heavily on the defensive and lost half their country as the Soviets ruthlessly pursued them all the way to Warsaw. It appeared that Poland’s defeat was imminent and that Germany would be the new border state between Capitalism and Communism.Map of Eastern Europe after the Polish collapse in summer of 1920, right before the Battle of Warsaw.Polish commander Józef Piłsudski led the most celebrated defense of Warsaw in August, 1920. Here, the slightly outnumbered Polish armies utterly routed the overextended, exhausted Red Army and solidified Polish independence. Over 110,000 Soviets were killed, wounded or captured in the rout and the Soviets would never again significantly threaten the Polish state in the war. Part of the victory rests on how the Poles cracked Soviet radio communications, which meant the Poles had total knowledge of the Soviet plans and how their formations were faring on both the offensive and defensive.Ultimately, the Finns prevailed due to good leadership and foreign aid. The Estonians and Latvians routed their respective opposing Soviet-German forces through strong, determined defenses. The Poles, whom the Soviets focused their efforts on following the Ukrainian collapse, had the numbers to nearly match the Soviet forces (over 700,000 men) and also had strong leaders and the much appreciated advantage of knowing Soviet plans beforehand.