ISSN 2618-9844 (Online version)
ISSN 1810-6374 (Print version)
We should gradually free foreign policy of rigid subordination to geopolitics and related super-involvement. Geopolitics won’t disappear, but becoming less engulfed in it is an important task for Russia to tackle.
The gradual transformation from a unipolar order to a more multipolar order seems to be well underway, and digital factors can be used to either slow or speed up the process.
Since it is unlikely that universalist claims of Western liberalism will evaporate any time soon, they will continue to produce a rationale for counter-ideological alignments.
The world of the future will be more complex and volatile than it looked just 20-30 years ago. There will be enough room for a variety of combinations by different world policy actors cooperating with each other in different formats. The concept of multilaterality might become one of the guidelines to follow in this process.
The implementation of the “Belt and Road” initiative became dependent on the pro et contra balance that is not conducive to cooperation for the time being. “Gains and prospects” are abstract, while “risks and threats,” on the contrary, are quite concrete and cannot be ignored.
Within the framework of “civilizational realism” existing contradictions between Russia and the West could be solved by reaching an agreement with the “civilizational leaders” of the Euro-Atlantic region to create a demilitarized buffer zone made up of limitrophe Eastern European states.
Even the most controversial Chinese assessments concerning Russian diplomacy are of interest as they are formulated not from the Western point of view but from the position of China as a new rising power seeking to create its own specific national style in diplomacy.
The world is not in disarray, it is in transition. As wealth and power move to the South and the East again after a couple of centuries, the validity of some normative assumptions and the efficacy of incumbent institutions that manage the world order is being severely tested.
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.
It is about time to draft a truly new foreign policy concept as the previous narrative has exhausted itself, being more of a ritual than a guide to action. Russia needs “strategic patience” as never before.
Only joint efforts with US, China, North and South Korea will bring a lasting deal
Russia had spent four centuries moving East and then another four centuries moving West. Attempts to take root failed in either case. Both roads were tried. These days the demand will be for third-way ideologies, third-type civilizations, a third world, a third Rome…
The country’s geographic location largely predetermines its foreign policy, as well as the trajectory of its socioeconomic development. However, even the most negative geographical limitations can be overcome via connectivity and compatibility that are the passport to the success of Eurasian integration.
The world’s future is currently endangered by numerous fundamental threats, yet Western democracies fear only one – Vladimir Putin.
Relations between Russia and the United States are acquiring a new quality. Moscow and Washington can cooperate on certain individual issues, but strategically they are now on their own—certainly not in the same boat.
There is a great risk of getting mired in counterproductive discussions about the frontiers of the European model of historical development. References to the history of one region or another or one nation or another as “European” or “non-European” are unscrupulously used today inside the EU itself and along its periphery when it comes to discussing whether the region or nation deserves to be a member of a united Europe.
Many analysts in Moscow argue that the political and propaganda pressure being exerted by the West on Russia is the result of Russia’s growth. But this Western pressure is more of a counterattack against Russia than a direct attack intended to prevent a further weakening of the West’s positions and possibly win them back. This counterattack is an important constituent feature of a “New Epoch of Confrontation.”
The name Asia might be a misnomer by Ancient Greeks’ standards, but the homogenous nature of this area is quite visible.
In recent months, the Kremlin’s priorities in Syria have shifted from fighting a long war to seeking a quick peace.
Within a few decades, the Internet has transformed the global economy and rendered the old Westphalian order increasingly obsolete. But without a new governance framework to manage cyber threats and abuses, what has been a boon to globalization could become its undoing.
At the end of 2016, both the political and expert communities in Russia appeared to be very pessimistic about the future of the world order in general, and the about the future of the West in particular.
This compilation is meant as a sampling of Graham’s views. The quotes below are divided into categories similar to those in Russia Matters’ news and analysis digests, reflecting the most pertinent topic areas for U.S.-Russian relations broadly and for drivers of the two countries’ policies toward one another.
Irredentism may cause all the risks stemming from the strong identity of a great power and its imperial heritage, which fuels the temptation to regard the modern borders as “casually drawn” and “unfair,” to get mixed with nationalism. This is a very dangerous cocktail.
The establishment of independent Ukrainian and Belarusian statehood facilitates the development of Russia’s own national project, which is oriented towards the future, rather than towards the restoration of the past. Its key foreign policy feature is real sovereignty and the freedom of geopolitical maneuvering.
There is every reason to argue that the existing approach to strategic stability based on sustaining the state of mutually assured destruction has already become an impediment to the bilateral nuclear weapons reduction regime and is completely unfit for the transition to a multilateral framework of nuclear arms negotiations.
Had Russia been one of the victor powers, the post-war order would have been far more stable. Had the Franco-Russian alliance survived to sustain that order, then the rise of Hitler and Europe’s descent into a second great war would very probably have been avoided.
How America's failure to honor a 1990 commitment led to many of today's global crises.
Identifying and Pursuing Interests in the EU-Russia Relationship.
Before 2014, the majority of Ukrainians did not view the goal of European integration as a “national idea.” Even so, most Ukrainians had positive views about developing relations with and integrating into the EU.
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.’
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.