Strictly speaking, a straitjacket and a life vest serve different purposes in relation to the person wearing them. But for people embroiled in a conflict, the terms can become as coloured by divergent standpoints as to grow interchangeable.

In conflict zones, countless factors come in to play to shape an environment of immense complexity. Each of them is wide open to interpretation by the different sides.

Hotspot analysts have to make sense of these differing conflicts and then offer a single explanation. Little wonder that our talk with Dr Ognyan Minchev, executive director of the Institute for Regional and International Studies (IRIS) on Georgia was virtually a trip around the globe and a trip in time. It identified interests of countries involved directly and indirectly in the conflict, ran parallels to related and similar conflicts, placed developments in an historical perspective. Yet it categorically made sense of the terms "straitjacket" and "life vest". Minchev, famed as an opinionated true politologist, cannot do it otherwise than to give the interpretation which rings truest.

Hotspot revelations
In his interpretation of Georgian developments, Minchev straitjacketed Russia, laid life vest hopes on the European Union and saw China as the ultimate winner.

The Georgian conflict, he says, is the by-product of Russia's expansionist policy and its clash for control over Southern Caucasus with the United States.
"Russia sees its return on the international scene entirely through the prism of formation of energy and territorial monopoly over certain portions of Eurasia," Minchev says. "These two monopolies can mainly empower Russia to `overtake' Europe, which is the principal target of Russia's long-term policy."

Russia can only do so if it blocks the energy flow and access of Central Asia - political, economic or military - out of the West.

To the West, however, it is crucial that corridors through the South Caucasus are open not only because they lie on the route of pipelines but also because they ensure the global marketplace and western security systems an extended reach and afford opportunities to develop socio-political systems, which, if not friendly, are at least neutral toward the West.

To the analyst, Central Asia forms the fulcrum of this century's geopolitical balance. "Central Asia will be the locus, the point of balance, the influences on which will define the essence of this balance," he says. However, Minchev argues that this region's isolation creates "long-term and exceptionally favourable preconditions for geopolitical expansion not so much for Russia as for China". Not only will it have the lion's share of the region's natural resources, but also an edge in gaining the local leader role. An excellent setup in view of China's future goals. Minchev believes that the country of 1.5 billion people will soon part with its century-old isolationist policy and become an actor on the international stage.

This international context is the alliance between the European Union and its Nato ally the USA, and Russia, which is energy-dependent on them. It puts the EU in a broker, but also a vulnerable position, Minchev says.

Unlike the Nato mechanisms regarding the US, the EU has no reciprocal mechanisms to counteract if Russia decides to apply pressure," Minchev says, pointing to one aspect of susceptibility. "Second, the EU is unable to create a coherent internal nucleus to form and represent its position and, if it forms one, it will come about with difficulty."

The rift happens along the German-Polish border and stems from systemic mismatches of member states' national interests and leads to poor cohesion on political and strategic level. The first camp gravitates around Germany, France and Italy. It does not feel as threatened by Russia and is prone to concessions to secure energy supplies.

The other camp, formed by most Central and Eastern European countries, "keep too good memories of the past" to "light-heartedly afford to place new weapons into Russia's hands. No one entertains the illusion that when Russia surmounts the Georgian and Ukrainian challenges, it will take to the Baltic and Balkan challenges."

"As a result, Europe acts more as a buffer between the Atlantic world and Russia rather as an effective intermediary or partner," Minchev says, although at the same time paying tribute to the efforts of French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Energy dependence, the analyst says, is not a reason in itself to apply double standards on countries transgressing democratic rules and behavioural principles.

He says: "The EU must halt the chronic advance crediting of Russian policy on the optimistic premise that this country will finally correct itself. Or else Russia will continue acting as an `international gangster' in regard to Georgia and replicate the conflict elsewhere."

Russia, for its part, "will make a gross mistake if it overestimates its current potential," he says. "It is not commensurate to that of the Soviet Union. Russia's financial strength is very fragile because it is one-dimensional and market fluctuations of this factor alone can effectively raise and lower its potential to speedily pursue its strategy."

For this reason, to Minchev it is not Russia but the US, the EU and China who play first fiddle in setting global rules. He says: "It is very important how international relations will be structured economy-wise and in the field of basic principles and norms of international behaviour."

Bulgaria's position
Bulgaria's position, he says, is one of conformity with the EU standpoint. It has no policy of its own, unfortunately not only in regard to the conflict.

"Bulgaria is in a specific condition, which precedes the possibility of behaving in one way or another. The state has fallen into deep crisis in terms of efficiency and identity."

During the communist regime, Minchev says, the state acted as a satellite of the USSR. "The break-up of the communist system led to attempts to create an alternative elite, which was to redefine Bulgaria's state identity. Alas, these attempts failed.

"Bulgaria has been run by a very lax infrastructure of hostilities toward every other post-communist clan originating from State Security and the elite of the former communist party," he says. "For this reason, they are unable to integrate their efforts into building a collective notion for national interest."

Academics and real life hand in hand
Minchev's research on hotspots stems from his desire to contemplate real-life events. On return from specialising in US foreign policy at UCLA, he opted against an academic-only career.

"I found that big theories have little applicability and that their underlying concepts do not lend themselves to non-standard thinking in eliciting what is happening and what is going to happen." Back then in 1992, he identified foreign policy and policy studies as that lifeline between academics and reality and set them as targets of his professional pursuit.

"I oriented toward policy studies and foreign policy to employ concrete methodology in my analysis of existing hotspots, to see how an existent political environment can be given a forecast," he says.

The same two fields emerged as the focus of activity for the IRIS, an institute he has been heading since inception in 1997.

At that time, the Balkans were very much the object of international attention.

Minchev says: "We created the institute to focus our attention on issues such as ethnic conflicts, institutional development and modernisation of the Balkans, alongside regional development research."

This realm was covered by dozens of projects, the bulk of which took place in 1998/2003. In 1999, IRIS organised a conference showcasing a framework blueprint for Balkan region development afer the Kosovo crisis.

The related publication addressed democratisation, institutional and economic development and security issues and stepped on the EU and West-brokered Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe.

IRIS was also a fervent promoter of Bulgaria's accession to the North Atlantic and EU structures. A project of note was its Bulgaria for Nato book, issued in 2002 and disseminated as a lobbyist instrument among decision-makers in Nato member states. Washington and US consultancies gave the book a high rating.

A third arm of IRIS' activities focused on training non-governmental organisations and small business communities into advocacy techniques over the 1999/2002 period.

"It was a very interesting and exciting project, which allowed us to empower regular people to decide a series of problems," the IRIS director says.

Although financial limitations prevented it from gaining mass scale, success was unexpectedly easy and quick, thanks to project participants' self-organisation and lack of external resistance.

"We managed to convince people to overcome the culture of dependency, to curb the premise that somebody else has to define the parameters of one's self-fulfilment and to realise that restrictions are not of external but internal nature."

Freedom and independence
To Minchev the essence of his professional life is to think and write freely.

"The risk of doing so is primarily related to the loss of some privileges or bonuses associated with good relations with the government," Minchev says, adding that he has paid this price.

"Although foreign policy-orientated think tanks elsewhere in the world have usually been put to governmental use and that local specialists of my kind number 10 at most, IRIS has received almost zero state support."

Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry, though, has used the services of IRIS in 2001-2006, though, when it bartered analyses for an office for the IRIS five- to 12-strong team. Yet IRIS mainly finances its activities through the international non-governmental marketplace.

Criticism as remedy
Minchev is known for his critical and oft unorthodox media statements.

"I prefer to avoid personal confrontations, though I have had some," he says, the most recent being his call to deprive Bulgarian President Georgi Purvanov off media comfort and to bring his ties with shadow rulers to light. Yet such targeted criticism is more an exception than a rule. "I prefer to speak in principle and evaluate personal behaviour through the prism of what public figures should do from the positions they assume."

Why is he doing it? "I want a democratic Bulgaria," he says.

As with many people in the early 1990s, he had the option to emigrate but chose to stay because he felt it made sense to participate in the changes. He does not regret his choice.

"I have remained here to do what I am doing now," Minchev says. "To dress in puppet clothes only to win a project while shutting my mouth, I see no sense or justification in such lifestyle. Here in Bulgaria, now.

"I might sound pathetic but freedom - of speech, writing, behaviour - is in the focus of my understanding of life."

Minchev is a man without a particular cause, yet he wants to see Bulgaria as a country of order, intelligent behaviour, with citizens treating each other humanely. He dislikes labels and avoids calling himself a patriot. "I simply believe that a person cannot love mankind if he does not love his country, his family, his folks," he says.

Possibly out of personal philantropic needs, Minchev has added psychology and religion to his interests. In conflict situations these interests play no less a prominent role.

With a three-dimensional understanding, Minchev might be even better equipped to analytically straitjacket conflict situations and offer life-vest solutions.

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Snapshot

The Manager: Ognyan Minchev
The Company: Institute for Regional and International Studies (IRIS)
The Job: Executive director
In Brief: Minchev has completed a doctoral degree in sociology at Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski and a specialisation in US foreign policy at UCLA, the US. Apart from heading IRIS, he is the chairperson of the Bulgarian office of Transparency without Borders and manages the political science department at Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski. He is among the most prominent political commentators in Bulgaria with a series of publications and appearances at conferences facing security issues in post-communist states.