ISSN 2618-9844 (Online version)
ISSN 1810-6374 (Print version)
The 2018/2019 world political season ended in an atmosphere of some fated madness, with tragedies degrading into a farce in line with Hegel’s trite aphorism. But the atmosphere of farce makes everyone fear that the situation may spiral out of control for the most trivial of reasons.
Amid a number of nuclear nonproliferation and arms control crises, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was well down the list of pressing nuclear issues – until now.
It is not nuclear weapons that help maintain stability; rather, a gradual decay of the “long peace” will raise the need for the transformation of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons already act not so much as a guarantee against war as a guarantee that your enemy will not use them against you?like chemical weapons in World War II.
This year is filled with anniversaries of events that happened in 1989. Back then Europe and the entire world witnessed a change of the sociopolitical paradigm, which soon led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the end of the previous system of international relations.
Many bad things have been said about nuclear weapons in the decades since they first came into existence. Indeed, in the middle of the 20th century the human race developed a means of confrontation with the potential to destroy the entire world were it used on a large scale.
Russia and China’s strategic military cooperation is becoming ever closer. President Putin has announced that Russia is helping China build an early warning system to spot intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
This year’s Annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Washington DC revealed a growing preoccupation with the mounting signs of a slowdown in the world economy.
Catherine the Great is credited with saying that the only way to secure the borders of the Russian Empire is to expand them continuously. This logic is to some degree applicable to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which embarked on a path of geographical enlargement quite literally from the very first days of its existence.
Developing the Russian Far East and Siberia has been an important step in state-building for Russia. Although there have been debates about appropriate ideas and policies in the strategy, developing the vast frontier region and promoting relations with Asian countries has set a steadfast direction of development for Russia. Chinese-Russian cooperation in the border region during the early stages of imperial Russia’s policies in the Far East holds enlightening significance for today’s bilateral cooperation.
The main objective for the Shinzo Abe administration’s active engagement in supporting the involvement of Japanese companies in the development of the Russian Far East is to create favourable environment for resolution of the territorial issue and conclusion of a peace treaty with Russia. Japan–Russia cooperation in the Russian Far East is part of Abe’s 8-point cooperation plan with Moscow.