Russia in Global Affairs

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RSCI Scopus

No. 3

2025 July/September

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Contents

Issue Information

The Past Comes Knocking

Fyodor A. Lukyanov

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-5-8

Remodeling the world

A Self-Repaying Empire: What Trump Is Doing to American Power. And What He Isn’t

Svyatoslav I. Kaspe

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-10-35

What If Trump’s Russia Gambit Isn’t a Bluff?

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-36-47

Forty Years After: Personality and History (Part I)

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-48-68

The roads we take

Chinese Civilizational Alternative to the Western Development Model

Alexander V. Lomanov

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-70-89

Is Postmodernism the Most Appropriate Paradigm for Conceptualizing Postliberal Politics?

Artyom L. Lukin, Arthur Yu. Korol

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-90-105

Forty Years After: Personality and History (Part II)

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-106-124

The craft of policymaking

Experts and the Government in Russian Foreign Policy

Maxim A. Savinykh

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-126-140

Science Diplomacy and Scientific Sanctions against Russia

Olga A. Krasnyak, Pierre-Bruno Ruffini

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-141-148

U.S. Enforcement of Economic Sanctions

Ivan N. Timofeev

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-149-162

Academic and Professional Diplomatic Training in a Complex World

Andrei A. Sushentsov, Nikita N. Neklyudov, Rupal Mishra, Vladimir V. Pavlov

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-163-178

Interests and strategies

U.S. Homeland Missile Defense, Great Power Competition, and Arms Control—Incongruous Concepts?

Oleg O. Krivolapov

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-180-196

Russia’s Real Interests Before and After the Fall of Damascus

Dylan Payne Royce

DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-3-197-220

Articles

The Past Comes Knocking

In times of upheaval, it is always tempting to compare the present with the past: Will history repeat itself?

Fyodor A. Lukyanov

A Self-Repaying Empire: What Trump Is Doing to American Power. And What He Isn’t

What Trump is doing to the American empire and its power (regardless of his motives and awareness) can be compared with “muscle drying” practiced by athletes, which requires a break in competition. Like an athlete, the empire will reenter the world stage in better shape, more muscular, with new ambitions, and most likely very angry about what was done during its absence.

Svyatoslav I. Kaspe

What If Trump’s Russia Gambit Isn’t a Bluff?

If Trump’s pivot towards Russia is genuine and lasting, the global order will undergo a profound shift. A consolidated Global North, restored economic ties, the weakening of NATO, and internal political shifts in Eastern Europe could reshape the geopolitical landscape. However, if this realignment is opportunistic and short-lived, its impact may be far less transformative.

Forty Years After: Personality and History (Part I)

Forty years since Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, Russia in Global Affairs asked political scientists and international relations experts in different countries to say how, living in a completely different world of today, they assess the events of that time and the role of his ‘new political thinking.’

Chinese Civilizational Alternative to the Western Development Model

China seeks to create a new worldview system that can surpass Western “universal values” thanks to its reliance on reality and practice. Its key component is the Chinese leadership’s confidence in the correctness and effectiveness of the national development model.

Alexander V. Lomanov

Is Postmodernism the Most Appropriate Paradigm for Conceptualizing Postliberal Politics?

Postmodernism was born in the Enlightenment, evolving alongside modernity and in reaction to it. Politically and ideologically, postmodernism was initially more right-conservative but then swung sharply to the left. Today we see postmodernism returning to its illiberal roots.

Artyom L. Lukin, Arthur Yu. Korol

Forty Years After: Personality and History (Part II)

Forty years since Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, Russia in Global Affairs asked political scientists and international relations experts in different countries to say how, living in a completely different world of today, they assess the events of that time and the role of his ‘new political thinking.’

Experts and the Government in Russian Foreign Policy

If the authorities want to attract experts, it is important to not only support their work, but also to engage in dialogue with them, to listen to them and hear them. More specifically, the state should show that it truly needs and values the knowledge and expertise of the expert community, a gesture that would be appreciated, and not only by the skeptics.

Maxim A. Savinykh

Science Diplomacy and Scientific Sanctions against Russia

In the case of the current war in Ukraine, science diplomacy, exercised through scientific sanctions, has proved to be a punitive strategy”. Indeed, science for diplomacy is being replaced by science to condemn and punish.

Olga A. Krasnyak, Pierre-Bruno Ruffini

U.S. Enforcement of Economic Sanctions

The key instruments used by the U.S. to make sanctions work are civil penalties, criminal prosecution, and secondary sanctions. By interpreting U.S. jurisdiction quite broadly, the U.S. authorities discipline not only large U.S. companies but also foreign ones.

Ivan N. Timofeev

Academic and Professional Diplomatic Training in a Complex World

Some countries, such as the U.S., India, and Germany, eschew academic training of their diplomats, confining training to a more limited set of professional skills such as crisis management and digital engagement. This trend can be attributed to the increasing velocity and complexity of the international system: cyber threats, economic shocks and more.

Andrei A. Sushentsov, Nikita N. Neklyudov, Rupal Mishra, Vladimir V. Pavlov

U.S. Homeland Missile Defense, Great Power Competition, and Arms Control—Incongruous Concepts?

Even without direct U.S.-Russia dialogue on strategic stability, each side can still grope for guardrails with which to avoid the nuclear war that neither side wants, even as great-power competition continues.

Oleg O. Krivolapov

Russia’s Real Interests Before and After the Fall of Damascus

Russia should exclude from its interests the ineffective, negligible, vacuous, and unachievable/obsolete. Instead, it should try to satisfy concrete, substantial, viable interests in a maximally effective manner. In the case of Syria, these interests were and are largely limited to supporting Iran and providing Russia with African access and Mediterranean access/bases.

Dylan Payne Royce