Russia in Global Affairs

The situation with religious minorities in many respects reflects the logic of the political process of recent decades in Turkey. The social base and the core constituency of the ruling AKP are people of conservative views or even supporters of religious nationalism. For this part of society, nationalism and Islamic identity are interrelated and complementary notions.

World War I is rightly called the suicide of Europe. It would be even more appropriate to consider it the suicide of empires. WWI graphically demonstrated that the major threat to any empire was not domestic nationalism, but another empire.

Instead of pouring oil on the fire of the relentless struggle between self-declared progressivists and populists and looking for dragons (or bears) to slay abroad, Western politicians and mainstream media should resort to the art of compromise in dealing with their political opponents at home and accept that in international relations balance of power is even more important than separation of powers in domestic politics.

Internationalists hope that multilateralism will eventually overcome unilateralism in the global arena, international cooperation will replace nationalism, and authoritarianism will leave the world scene. These thinkers are optimistic that the coronavirus crisis will make the world look for a more coordinated approach to solving complicated problems and preventing major catastrophes.

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.

An attempt at decommunization in Russia has brought about the failure of de-Stalinization. As the Yeltsin regime positioned itself as an opponent of all Soviet history, many Russians were reluctant to see a larger part of their lives thrown into the dustbin.

There has again emerged an area of instability and armed conflict (Ukraine) on Poland’s borders. Its relations with neighbors that are vital for its national security and economic development (Russia, Germany, and the European Union as a whole) are ruined again.

Historical arguments are heavily used by both Ukraine and Russia in pursuing their political goals at the national and international levels. The current state of relations between the two countries predetermines further instrumental use and misuse of history for the purposes of propaganda and hybrid war.

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.