Russia in Global Affairs

The global crisis that started in 2008 signaled the end of the era of neoliberal globalization but not the end of the processes it engendered. We can move forward, using the theoretical legacy left to us by the great thinkers of the Enlightenment and the ideologists of the liberation movement. Like it or not, Karl Marx remains the greatest of them.

The global crisis that started in 2008 signaled the end of the era of neoliberal globalization but not the end of the processes it engendered. We can move forward, using the theoretical legacy left to us by the great thinkers of the Enlightenment and the ideologists of the liberation movement. Like it or not, Karl Marx remains the greatest of them.

The “Minsk process” has created a chance for Donbass to become a new proving ground for unrecognized statehood. Different options, ranging from Chechnya and Serbian Krajina to the Transnistrian experience, may be possible. Or the region may build a unique Donbass model.

While previously developments in the North Caucasus were primarily looked at from the viewpoint of inter-ethnic relations and regional policies, today this theme has expanded to a pan-Russian scale. It is not Chechnya, Ingushetia, or Dagestan per se that matter; rather, it is how the Russian heartland perceives those regions.

Siberia should re-evaluate its place and role, and start developing itself as an element of the global economy, similar to what the eastern U.S. states did several decades ago and China’s coastal provinces did recently.

Post-Soviet Russia largely emerged as a separatist project, although it had not used this kind of rhetoric for its legitimization. Separatism was, in fact, embedded in the foundation of the post-Soviet Russian statehood.

Separatism rears its head again. Secession petitions began circulating in many US states after President Barack Obama won reelection.

Five years ago, when Europe was debating whether to recognize Kosovo’s independence, Russia warned against opening a Pandora’s Box.