Serbia Hosted an International Scientific Conference on the World War One

25 April 2014

Belgrade, Serbia. 25 April. INTERFAX-MNA — The President of International Advisory Committee of Organizations of Reserve Officers (IAC) Mr. Aleksander Kankshin urged to learn lessons of the World War One at the background of abrupt aggravation of tensions in a number of regions.

He spoke at the opening ceremony of the International Scientific Conference «The First World War: Causes, Lessons, Conclusions and Modernity» on Thursday, in Belgrade.

«It is important that the historic memory of this tragedy should encourage more active search for resolutions to the modern problems of security. We must acknowledge that in global turbulence and growing interdependence of states and peoples, the only reliable protection against probable military turmoil is observance of universal principles of equal and indivisible security applied to Euro-Atlantic, Euro-Asian and Asian-Pacific areas», said Mr. A.Kanshin.

He stressed that IAC is non-political organization which is not interfering in affairs of other organizations and states. «However, the situation evolving in the world today, including that in Ukraine, prompts our organization to clearly express our stand: the world public must use every possible means of political, economic and diplomatic nature except force, to prevent involvement of national armed forces in resolution of disputes», said Mr. A.Kanshin who is leading a Commission of Public Chamber of the Russian Federation for Problems of National Security.

According to him, the reality of our days is that military and technological capabilities of armies, number of military means and equipment have long exceeded reasonable needs of defense and are posing a real threat to the planet.

«Therefore we are convinced that each state’s armed forces must be put under vigilant supervision of the public», Mr. A.Kanshin noted.

He emphasized that in terms of its scale the World War One was an unprecedented cataclysm which caused loss of millions of lives: four years of military operations claimed over 10 million combatants and 12 million civilians, more than 55 million were wounded and injured.

In a word, as Mr. A.Kanshin noted, the World War One predetermined the whole next course of history events including unleashing of the World War Two. «As George Kennan, an American political scientist correctly noted, everything which happened in the world in the XX century came from the WWI», Mr. A.Kanshin said.

As a correspondent of Interfax-MNA reports, the International Scientific Conference in Serbia is attended by representatives of research and public organizations, diplomatic corps of almost 30 countries, as well as 15 member countries of IAC, head of three major international organizations namely Academician Evgeny Velikhov, President of International Association of Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions, Mr. Laurent Attar-Bayrou, President of Soldiers of Peace International Association and Chairman of the French National Federation of Participants of Foreign Operations, Mr. Dan Viggo Bergtun, Vice-President of World Veterans Federation (Norway), as well as Army General Makhmut Gareev, President of the Academy of Military Sciences, and Lieutenant General Alexander Sinayskiy, Secretary of the Council of Ministers of Defense of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The Conference is also attended by Mr. Nebojsha Rodich, Minister of Defense of Serbia, General Ljubisha Dikovich, Chief of General Staff of Serbian Armed Forces, other high ranking officers and veterans of Serbia, public activists and academicians.