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30 january 2019
Indian Approaches to Multilateral Cooperation and Institutions in Eurasia
Relations between the US and Russia are at their worst since the end of the Cold War, China and the US have tense relations, India and China are trying to stabilize relations after a period of acrimony. The major powers appear today to be like the unhappy families in Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: ‘Each unhappy family (major power in this case) is unhappy in its own way.’
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17 january 2019
U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy
The U.S.-China relationship and the economic and security dynamics of the Indo-Pacific are riddled with contradictions that raise questions about both the Chinese and American policies. How this drama plays out will have no small impact on a global and regional system in transition looking out to 2025.
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21 september 2018
US Indo-Pacific Strategy: Myths and Reality
Facing its ‘most dynamic and formidable competitor in modern history’, Washington increasingly does away with hopeful thinking and seeks new approaches towards Asia. It raised the concept of the Indo-Pacific region. But what strategy is behind this buzzword? And what does it mean for Asia?
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29 june 2018
The New Global Governance: Towards a More Sustainable Framework
Faced with threats ranging from climate change to hugely disruptive technological advances, the world is clearly at a crossroads. More than ever a stable, inclusive and global governance is needed.
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19 march 2018
On Geopolitical Configurations in Asia
The name Asia might be a misnomer by Ancient Greeks’ standards, but the homogenous nature of this area is quite visible.
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4 december 2017
Plural but equal in everyone’s world: Dialogue in Sochi – or Information Warfare by Other Means?
Geopolitical pluralism, in all its continentally and regionally uneven permutations is the global reality in what passes for ‘no one’s world’ (Charles Kupchan) and/or a ‘world in disarray’ (Richard Haas) when in fact, there is an evolving underlying logic to a multipolar landscape in what should be considered ‘everyone’s world.’
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2 august 2017
Russia’s Eurasian Model of Modernization
As Russia’s literary classicists claimed, the most important issue for Russia is a sense of direction and in today’s context this is exactly what is lacking in Russia’s economic policy paradigm.
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6 june 2017
Cluster of Civilizations
Our oikumene will have to be recognized as multi-civilizational if a more balanced and multi-polar world is the ultimate goal. It is this kind of approach that is capable of making civilizational dialogue conflict free and mutually enriching.
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6 june 2017
Without Partnership
The anticipated transition of the U.S. Republican administration towards bilateral free trade area agreements may become an even more effective strategy for geoeconomic consolidation of Asian allies around Washington.
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13 february 2017
Two Heads of the Russian Eagle
The last thing anyone in Asia would be interested in is self-reflection and ambivalence inherent in the Russian socio-political consciousness, and our discussions of value or civilizational imperatives. People in the Asia-Pacific region respect effectiveness, the ability to achieve goals, consistency and perseverance.
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13 february 2017
2016 – A Victory of Conservative Realism
We will live in a highly competitive and increasingly unpredictable world. Russia should start economic growth and development in order not to fall behind the new technological revolution again. Economic weakness provokes external pressure.
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13 february 2017
Geoeconomics and the Heritage of Eurasianism
The economic heritage of Eurasianists includes opinions, still quite important today, on the role of the state and the private sector in the economy, models of economic development and planning during economic modernization.
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25 october 2016
From East to West, or Greater Eurasia
Distinguished officials attending the Eastern Economic Forum recently held in Vladivostok argued at one of its sessions about who was actually the author of the idea of Russia’s pivot to the East.
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25 september 2016
Old Goals, New Tasks
In view of the accelerated development of new technologies and potentially low energy prices, the struggle for energy markets will intensify. No matter in what areas energy cooperation may develop in the future, its main task will be attracting investment, technologies and human capital into the Russian fuel/energy sector.
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25 september 2016
Interconnecting Strategies
It seems Washington wants to provoke China into muscle-flexing. If Beijing shows restraint and cold calculation in response, this may have a restrictive, if not sobering, effect on Washington. Russia is interested in preventing the South China Sea from becoming a proving ground for testing the strength of one’s nerves.
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1 august 2016
How the World Looks From the Russian Perspective
In the future, a duumvirate may emerge in Central Asia, in which China will provide investment and resources, and Russia will contribute security and geopolitical stability.
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17 june 2016
Russia’s Role in Asia-Pacific Security Architecture
If there is a key lesson to be drawn from the history of international relations, it is that, in extremis, political and security considerations almost inevitably triumph over economic considerations. Nothing is less certain.
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17 june 2016
Russia’s Turn Eastward, China’s Turn Westward
A careful management of diverging interests and lingering conflicts of Russia and China in Central Asia, and expanding economic links as a gradual approach to economic integration could amount to something the EU can learn—and benefit—from.
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17 june 2016
Water and Peace
The only strategic response to the global water challenge and international competition for water would be to improve water use efficiency by redistributing water intakes and introducing new water use technologies. Importantly, these measures do not require redistributing water flows among countries.
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14 june 2016
Russia’s Turn Eastward, China’s Turn Westward: Cooperation and Conflict on the New Silk Road
The views and opinions expressed in this Paper are those of the author and do not represent the views of the Valdai Discussion Club, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
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7 june 2016
Russian Foreign Policy Finding New Bearings
This year will see the 25th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s breakup and the emergence of new Russia on its ruins. Time is ripe for taking stocks and mapping a road into the future.
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12 april 2016
Governance for a World Without World Government
G20 must complement its core composition with a consultative network that reaches out to other governments, business, civil society, and think tanks. Its aim should be to consult and cultivate, not command and control, so that others believe they have a genuine voice and are legitimate stakeholders.
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13 february 2016
The Highest Good Is Like Water
A reasonable choice would be a trial and error method, that is, learning partners better through joint projects. Instead of creating new regional cooperation mechanisms that may lead to conflicts, China should gradually promote its project of the Silk Road Economic Belt.
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13 february 2016
No Reason to Panic
The best strategy towards the TTP would be monitoring and assessing the applicability of its experience to integration projects involving Russia. After all, Russia was not ready to sign it anyway. Neither was China.
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13 february 2016
A Megaregional Challenge
The mega-regional trade agreements do not mean undermining the WTO, as some believe—there are no serious players in the world that would have such plans. The problem’s solution lies in gradual harmonization of the multilateral (WTO) format and regional/preferential and mega-regional (TPP and TTIP) formats.
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13 february 2016
2015: Global Tendencies and Russian Policies
The Russian elite have realized that the country will have to live in a new reality that differs from the past rosy dreams of integration with the West, while preserving its independence and sovereignty. Yet they have not yet used the confrontation and the growth of patriotism for an economic revival.
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15 december 2015
Evolution of China’s Foreign Strategies in the New Century
The “One Belt, One Road” strategic initiative is a focus and priority for China’s foreign strategy in the new century. What is particularly interesting is that this inter-regional cooperation initiative driven by concrete projects aims to link the Eurasian Economic Union with systemic policies and institutional designs.
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14 december 2015
Megalomania of Megaregionalism
With the formation of the TPP, regionalism is advancing to a new, transcontinental level and turning into mega-regionalism, which undermines the basis for multilateral liberalization of world trade. It brings to the fore the right of the strongest and most prosperous countries to identify the vectors of economic integration.
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23 november 2015
The Background and Prospects of the Evolution of China’s Foreign Strategies in the New Century
Several significant changes have taken place with regard to China’s foreign strategies in the last 50 odd years.
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2 july 2015
What Asia wants, or the "Four C's": Consurnption, Connectivity, Capital & Creativity
In the fifteen years since the 1998 crisis, the so-called Emerging and Developing Asia has become a new engine of global economic growth.
A new world order: A view from Russia
Since around 2017–2018, the world has been living through a period of progressive erosion, or collapse, of international orders inherited from the past. With the election of Donald Trump and the rapid increase of US containment of Russia and China—which is both a consequence of this gradual erosion and also represents deep internal and international contradictions—this process entered its apogee.
Will US pullout from Syria increase risk of conflict with Russia?
The announcement of the US pullout from Syria was received with caution in Moscow. Besides the security and political challenges it may bring about, the Trump decision could mean the end of a practical, relatively constructive US-Russian approach to conflict at flashpoints.
What is the ‘New Era’ of the Sino-Russian Relationship?
For a long time, Western commentators did not take the close relationship between Russia and China seriously, because conventional wisdom held that the foundation of this link is fragile. Russia has its “Eurasian complex,” which is considered ephemeral and opportunistic, whereas in China there has been a strong distrust of Russia since the 1949 Communist revolution, as typified by the Mao-Stalin alienation. Today, such analytical logic can no longer hold water.
Is There Life After Arms Control Death?
For several years, serious experts in Russia and the West have repeatedly warned the public about the threat of the collapse of the international nuclear arms control system. They spoke about the system, to be precise, because in the past half a century arms control developed as a sum-total of supplementary elements rather than an eclectic set of separate unrelated bilateral or multilateral agreements.
The INF Treaty: Mirror or Abyss?
The number of nuclear weapon states, their respective arsenals, and transatlantic nuclear arrangements make Europe one of the most “nuclearized” continents. Luckily, even when the total warhead numbers were even higher, nuclear use had been avoided – although the threat remains real.
Common Dreams or Vulgar Delusions? Elite Preoccupations in Discourses about the ‘Commons’
Our age is witness to a proliferation of discourses about the ‘commons’. They are emerging from more and more quarters, and the word is being applied to more things than ever before. One important strand of discourse, claiming to be communist, seeks to apply it to all kinds of spheres, from the earth and its natural bounty to culture, and to all sorts of resources, from the most immaterial, such as common knowledge, to the most material, such as the use of the earth’s finite natural resources. Internet activists refer to information and knowledge that exits on the web as the ‘digital commons’.
Globalization: New Pathways Along the South–South Axis
The year 2018 was marked by escalation in trade tensions among the world’s largest economies, mostly via bilateral trade restrictions.