ISSN 2618-9844 (Online version)
ISSN 1810-6374 (Print version)
Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi arrived in St. Petersburg on June 1 to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Leaders of the two countries will discuss steps to build up mutual trade, expand cultural and humanitarian cooperation
While it is difficult to say how France’s relationship with Germany and the European Union will change as Emmanuel Macron’s cabinet is still being formed, it is clear that the new French president’s priority will be in rebalancing relations.
No amount of propaganda can hide the fact that the Russian-Chinese partnership is not progressing well.
The April 16 referendum will focus on power distribution rather than institution building. In other words, the organizers saw it as an opportunity to expand the President’s powers and allow him to rule longer. In their turn, Turks perceived it as an institutional choice to contribute to the development of the state.
To repair his abysmal approval rating, Trump is likely to further intervene in Syria, prompting a dangerous Russian response.
If the larger picture defies prediction, the immediate future is scarcely more transparent. In the U.S. case, the known unknowns are numerous. They begin with the question of how much deck furniture Trump is willing to overturn in order to pursue an “America First” strategy.
The U.S. and Russia will most likely return to pragmatic relations after years of an ideologically-driven foreign policy under President Obama. However, both countries will probably harden their stance towards the other, and dramatic breakthroughs are unlikely.
In the old days coal miners took a caged canary down into mines. If the canary suddenly dropped dead, that meant that the deadly gas, carbon monoxide, was slowly seeping into the shaft... An order of magnitude increase in killing rampages in America over the last several decades is like canaries suddenly starting to drop dead all around us. It is an early indicator of much worse troubles to come.
The article reveals causes of the social protest and the emergence of qualitatively new components in relationship between the elite and society.
The leaders of major cyber powers have declared an intent to restrict their actions in virtual space. This new weapon looks too lucrative indeed. Major crises will be unavoidable until the main players realize that mutual restrictions and the rules of the game are crucial.
The Russian political system is hard to understand, but not impossible to understand. The simplistic interpretation of a “Tsar ruling alone” shows its limits every time it is recalled to explain the Kremlin’s latest decision in foreign or domestic policy.
If elites continue to encourage the racist demagogues of the right, they will live in societies fundamentally transformed beyond their control. Where unpredictable authoritarian leaders take power, elites can lose their liberties and ultimately even their wealth.
The current elites lack Primakov’s ability to find a balance between national and international interests, see a better future, and choose the best way to achieve it. It is this ability that has placed Primakov among the brilliant representatives of realist thought.
The victory of Donald Trump reinforced international tendencies, which had been obvious for Russians and which had been guiding Russian behavior for last few years.
In the wake of the For Fair Elections protest movement in Russia in 2011-2012, the Kremlin initiated a new strategy of state-society relations that was aimed at diminishing the propensity for protest in the next election cycle.
The oil- and gas-rich states of the Caspian Sea basin—Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan—registered phenomenal growth throughout most of the 2000s. However, the heady days of resource-fueled development now appear to be over, and local governments are suddenly struggling to overcome massive budget deficits, devalued currencies, and overall economic stagnation.
Two and a half years after the Euromaidan revolution, Ukraine represents a mixed story of improvements and setbacks.
Aiming to spread democracy, the U.S. has meddled in foreign countries’ politics for decades. Russia just returned the favor.
After Russia’s wave of protest during the 2011-2012 election cycle, the country’s authorities embarked on an effort to prevent anti-regime mass mobilization during subsequent election periods.
The 13th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club includes a special session on the theme “What if… the Soviet Union had not collapsed?”
Some form of power-sharing arrangement could pave the way to reconciling the conflict in the Ukraine and in relations between the EU and Russia is a valid one.
Two principal and emotional points of history have again been placed on the national stage: the Great Patriotic War (a unifying memory) and the era of Joseph Stalin (a point of contention).
In the coming weeks, observers from Moscow to Bras?lia will look towards the United States, where voters face a stark choice between two radically different presidential candidates.
No one would be served by cutting short the unique European experiment. It should develop and be an example for other regions to emulate.
Discussions of popular support for the Kremlin’s foreign policy often invoke common international relations concepts, like the “rally around the flag” effect...
Like any ideology, patriotism comes along with an illusion of being part of “a big common cause.” However, illusion here is not deception, but an objective necessity, something that has to be hidden for society to continue to exist and at the same time adequately conceived at a conscious level.
Russia should reasonably assess the need for itself to participate in old, mostly European, formats of integration, and to think of new formats that would be more consistent with modern requirements. The principles of Russia’s interaction should be revised in favor of greater pragmatism and protection of national interest.
Despite its deep crisis of identity, spawned by nihilistic elites who are both unable to give a sense to existence and to act in favour of the common good, France is marked by a discreet renewal.
As yet another attack claims a shocking toll in innocent lives in France, political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov writes how terrorist acts and the helplessness of secret services are changing Europe before our very eyes
As the European Union hangs in the balance, both sides seem to be thinking of past golden ages instead of planning for the future.
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.