Today’s top three challenges Russia has to tackle
The Ukrainian conflict has effectively overhauled the challenges and threats that Russia faces. We have had next to no such precedent in our history. The accumulation of shocks and their cumulative effect can impinge both on the society and on Russia’s statehood. There will be no going back, while scenarios of the future—previously considered highly unlikely—have emerged.
The uniqueness of the threat configuration paradoxically coexists with the...
RIAC Working Paper No. 62 / 2022
RIAC Working Paper No. 62 / 2022
Practices and principles that underpin multilateralism are currently facing multiple challenges and major opposition, including one-sided rhetoric employed by leaders across the globe, a grave crisis of many multilateral organizations and regimes, both global and regional. Politicians are shifting the responsibility for the shortcomings of multilateralism onto one another, blaming their opponents for departing from legitimate multilateral...
... will be able to best exploit the new reality and take advantage of the opportunities that are opening up? And how?
Igor Ivanov:
Rethinking International Security for a Post-Pandemic World
COVID-19 has also left its mark on the current architecture of international relations.
At the turn of the century, it was mired in crisis. The end of the Cold War towards the late 20
th
century effectively signaled the beginning of the transition from the bipolar world order established in the wake of the Second ...
No matter how the modern world order “crumbles”, the dimensions of the modern world cannot be reduced to mere security issues
The Russian community of international relations professionals and pundits is strongly influenced by political realism. Being a realist is a good rule of thumb when it comes to mainstream approaches to international affairs. “Enemy” liberalism, “freaky” constructivism,...
... vast assemblage of flavours, highlights and shades of aftertaste processed through the copper alembic of the liberal paradigm rather than pure ethanol as it is. Liberals hold on to the premise that states are well short of being stand-alone actors in international relations, as they are—to different extents—represented by various group interests being in complex interaction with each other. In approaching some foreign policy, liberals will tend to taste the flavours of culture, the highlights ...
... debated either as free-riding (abusing the international system with a view to gaining unilateral advantages) or as far as revisionism, which implies taking advantage of their important standing to revise the codified and uncodified rules and norms in international relations [Tammen et al. 2000; Davidson 2016; Schweller2015]. The rise of new powers, though, contributed just as well to debates on multilateralism and multipolarity of today’s world [Sakwa 2020].
As China was becoming increasingly assertive,...
Over fifty leading experts, former statesmen and diplomats from many countries of the world took part in the event
On November 27–28, 2020, the Canadian Institute for 21st Century Questions (21CQ) together with Global Brief Magazine held a two-day virtual global conference on "The State and Future of the World: Post-Pandemic and Post-U.S. Election".
Over fifty leading experts, former statesmen and diplomats from many countries of the world took part in the event. Andrey Kortunov, RIAC...
On July 20, 2020, the role of nationalism and national identity in contemporary international relations was discussed during an online expert meeting
On July 20, 2020, the role of nationalism and national identity in contemporary international relations was discussed during an online expert meeting.
Andrey Kortunov, RIAC Director ...
Multilateralism, like any other format of diplomatic activity, will always be as effective or ineffective as the players who practice them want
The term “multilateralism” is not specifically elaborated in Russian international relations theory. For a long time, it has remained in the shadow of the much more popular term “multipolarity,” although the latter is gradually being replaced in Russian literature by the term "polycentrism.” Sometimes, it seems ...
The First Take on Humanity’s KPI in Combating the Coronavirus
All epidemics end sooner or later. Today’s coronavirus pestilence will also end, leaving behind many human tragedies, huge economic losses, forced changes in our customary way of life, shifts in geopolitics and worldviews that will in some manner affect each and every one of us. Although we still have a long way to go before the pandemic even peaks, it is never too early to ponder the outcomes we are ready to accept as relatively “benign”...
