Russia in Global Affairs

The European Union's political and economic outlook improved dramatically in 2017, following a year in which the bloc reeled from the United Kingdom's Brexit referendum and Donald Trump's election in the United States. But European leaders must not become complacent in 2018, or the EU could be thrown into crisis yet again the following year.

EU and Russia do currently live and represent two distinct normative models in the world, and neither is likely to completely prevail over the other.

The preference of some countries to isolate themselves within their borders is anachronistic and self-defeating, but it would be a serious mistake for others, fearing contagion, to respond by imposing strict isolation. Even in states that have succumbed to reductionist discourses, much of the population has not.

Relations between Russia, Europe, and the United States are in flux as none is able or wants to maintain what it once had. An attempt to revive the Cold War paradigm has failed, and a new framework of relations has not formed. This state of uncertainty will most likely endure until each player achieves a measure of domestic stability.

Any free trade deal between the United Kingdom and the United States, if it ever were to happen, is still many years off.

By most normal criteria Theresa May and the Conservative Party had a stunning victory in the recent British General Election.

It is too early to absorb the results of the June 8 parliamentary elections, there will be much discussion of what has happened and what it represents for the future of British politics. But the essence is that the United Kingdom have a hung parliament, and therefore the possibility of another election before too long.

Russia’s soft power should develop a broad and long-term narrative, capable of giving constructive answers to challenges facing Russian and Western societies. Berdyaev’s model of liberal conservatism can serve as the basis for an alternative discourse.

Once it has consolidated its civilizational subjectivity, Russia will be able to go back to playing an active role in world affairs. This rebound will not be a return to the principles of (neo)-Soviet or superpower globalism. Rather, it will proceed from a new understanding of the country’s international role.