№ 4 October/December 2011
Russia’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Balance and Imbalance
  • “Coercion to Partnership” and the Flaws of an Unbalanced World

    In the post-nuclear age, or rather beginning with NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia, military campaigns have actually turned into international political campaigns. The new strategic logic aims not to destroy an enemy state but to overpower it with a view to subordinating it to the victor’s interests politically and economically.

  • From the Cold War to Hot Finances

    (1)

    Bush remembers the tragedy of Charles V of Habsburg and Philip II of Spain who strove to keep one world under one sensible hegemony and, despite defeating major adversaries, failed over the stubborn resistance of rebels and heretics then in Holland and yesterday in Iraq – debt and imperial overstretching as predicted by Paul Kennedy.

  • The Remaking of the Industrial World

    Illusory hopes that new technological possibilities will help create unlimited wealth have never come true. No invention can ensure a life of ease for decades. Of course, the world has changed – but, as the developments of recent years have shown, not to an extent that the established economic patterns should be discarded as worthless. The 21st-century world is a renewed yet still industrial world.

In the Post-Bipolar World
  • Diversity Wins

    The West and the rising rest are poised to compete over principles, status, and geopolitical interests as the shift in global power quickens. The challenge for the West and the rest alike is to forge a new and pluralistic order – one that preserves stability and a rules-based international system amid the multiple versions of modernity that will populate the next world.

  • The Cold War and the Post-Cold War World

    Rather than a future in which Chinese hegemony will replace that of the United States, we seem to be rapidly entering a world in which no country will exercise anything resembling true world leadership. This bears a sinister resemblance to the 1920s, when the United States replaced Britain as the world’s leading economic power, but was wholly unwilling to shoulder additional burdens of global leadership.

  • The United Nations and the United States

    What the UN cannot do is to manufacture and fabricate international consensus where none exists. It cannot be the center for harmonizing national interests – and mediating or reconciling them into the international interest – when the divisions are too deep to be papered over by diplomacy, when the disputes are too intractable to be resolved around the negotiating table.

Transformation of Democracy
  • A Lesson Half-Learned

    The bankruptcy of transitology does not rule out the fact that modern liberal democracy is a product of European civilization and, consequently, that it is based on the historical and intellectual experience of the Enlightenment and subsequent eras. This concrete and essential component of the notion of democracy remains the last line in democracy’s defense against relativism – it allows us to distinguish genuine democracy from all kinds of fakes.

  • Democracy After the Collapse

    By increasingly becoming a mere servant of the economic-cum-political ruling group, democracy is losing its original appeal and its broader, previously unquestionable, social support. As a consequence, the contemporary market system works by de-politicizing the economy, thus making it less socially accountable and responsive.

  • A Challenge from the Past

    The intensity of “historical wars in Europe” has decreased since 2009, but the process could still be reversed. It is still very likely that history will be used as a tool for political disputes. Reverting to extremely aggressive, conflict-prone and destructive methods of historical policy is still a realistic threat.

Europe and Beyond
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Publisher's column

A revolutionary chaos of the new world

The world is getting more troublesome and increasingly challenging right before our eyes.

Editor's column

Medvedev’s Foreign Policy: Period of Stabilization

The presidential election is still two weeks away and the inauguration of the next president more than two months off, but we can already analyze the results of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency.

Reviews and essays

Russia Is Not Prepared to Restore the Empire

When the Baltic countries entered NATO and the European Union a couple of years ago, many thought it was the end of the centuries-old "red line." Euro-Atlantic organizations had crossed into the former Russian and Soviet empires.

Russia at the Turn of the Century: Hopes and Reality

In September 2004, the Russian city of Novgorod hosted an international conference entitled Russia at the Turn of the Century: Hopes and Reality. Its organizers were the RIA Novosti news agency, the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Russia in Global Affairs, and The Moscow Times.