Russia in Global Affairs

The time has come for the Russian academic community to initiate a broad discussion on the rationality of its attempts to stay within a ‘global’ academia that is actually under the structural control and ideological hegemony of the West.

Washington’s extreme reaction is due to panic at the fact that it’s losing its monopoly on global media.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is a minor part of the overall situation. The main part is what was the casus belli from the perspective of the Russian leadership: it wasn't Ukraine, it was European and American perceptions of how European security should look. And this view emerged immediately after the end of the Cold War. Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, gave an interview to the Die Weltwoche weekly (Switzerland).

We must again tread the path to stabilization and peaceful coexistence. But we will first need to set foot on that path.

Russian strategic culture does not need a radical overhaul. Rather, the 20th century suggests that the Achilles’ heel of Russian strategy has been the desire to simplify it and to define strategic goals on the basis of political ones. Politics is closely linked to strategy, but they speak different languages.

In international crises the sides have to rely on unreliable communication channels and often interpret the other sides’ intentions based on the nature of the actions being taken. This guesswork expands the room for speculation and misinterpretation. The latter, in turn, makes the situation extremely difficult to calculate and, hence, even more dangerous.

A Cold War can be compared with a multi-level chess game played simultaneously on several boards: economy, technology, politics, security, and ideology. Moves on one board cast a strategic shadow on the other boards, and a loss on one board leads to a loss of the entire game.

The news covering the Ukraine conflict causes many to pause and wonder if the world is on the verge of a new world war. Why is this so and, most importantly, what is to be done?

This is the article ordered by Financial Times to Professor S. Karaganov. But is was not published for the lack of space. But we still believe it is worth reading.