Russia in Global Affairs

Due to their geographical location between Europe and Asia, the tolerance of Eastern Christian culture, and broad political and economic ties, Russian people are destined to play an active role in maintaining global peace. The outside world will still need Russia in the foreseeable future in order to update the ideas of dialogue and global interaction.

The historical roots of the current crisis between Russia and the West are partly related to Russia's three hundred-year striving for the global power status, which has undermined the country’s stamina and deepened the gap with the West. Today, this striving requires Russia to revise the very foundations of its internal development and foreign policy.

In the Western mind, Russia remains among the most important significant Others. These days, given the rapidly developing identity crisis of the modern West, even more so than before.

The world is in transition from the Western type of global order and international system to a very different one. Nations and states will have to respond to new challenges and to handle a set of tasks crucial for their survival and further development.

The crises’ pressures have the effect of reducing the intellectual space for self-critical and self-reflective discourses, leaving room only for discourse of superiority and defensiveness.

In an era of global instability and transition of power, those will survive who can adapt external and internal conditions to their needs. Markets, regional systems and military-political alliances are being redrawn worldwide. Modern great powerness should combine the protection of the world’s vital interests with active efforts to build a new world order and carry out necessary internal reforms.

A major factor in understanding the present and future global transition processes will be a global rethinking of (asymmetric) resources available to international actors, ideas and perceptions of the leaders of major powers and the nature of internal political processes.

The new anti-Russian sanctions, imposed under various pretexts no longer related to Ukraine, have triggered heated debates on their nature and possible consequences. Politicians and…

Russia’s conflictual relationship with the West has been described as a Cold War-like confrontation. In reality, these powers are engaged in an asymmetric rivalry, not a Cold War.