The main things to watch this year
Predicting the future of international relations is always a risky endeavor. History shows that even the most confident forecasts can fall flat. For instance, the last Pentagon propaganda pamphlet on 'Soviet Military Power' was published in 1991 – the year the USSR ceased to exist. Similarly, the Washington-based RAND Corporation’s 1988 scenario on nuclear war included the Soviet Union engaging Pakistan over Afghanistan in 2004. Nevertheless, the urge to anticipate...
Great powers claim to be great because they cannot afford the luxury of pure situational opportunism, typical for many other international actors
The sudden fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria, as far as one can judge, came as a complete surprise for all external actors, Moscow including. Of course, many Russian area studies experts for a long time warned about the growing economic and social problems in Syria, as well as about incredible corruption and state governance inefficiency. They...
The next four years are likely to be a difficult period for the US foreign policy
We know pretty well that the US foreign policy has always been and will continue to be bipartisan; Republicans and Democrats usually have many more disagreements on domestic than on international matters. It is also evident that a very important role in the US foreign policy making belongs to the so called Deep State—a powerful stratum of senior non-elected bureaucrats occupying the corner-offices in most important...
On November 27–30, 2024, the 16th MEDays forum “Sovereignty and Resilences: Towards a New Global Balance” was held in Tangier, Morocco
On November 27–30, 2024, the 16th MEDays forum “Sovereignty and Resilences: Towards a New Global Balance” was held in Tangier, Morocco. The goal of the meeting was to discuss the main political and economic processes in the Middle East and Africa in a context of global change.
Within the framework of the forum, participants discussed key trends in political and...
55 years ago, the Soviet Union ratified the NPT
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), ratified by our country on November 24, 1969, is often referred to as the cornerstone or the foundation of the modern system of international relations. In many respects, this description holds true. A vivid illustration of this fact is the complete, albeit largely incidental, overlap between the officially recognized nuclear-weapon states under the NPT and the permanent members of the...
... open to new stages of escalation. For example, Kiev could use a dirty atomic bomb against Russia, which could be met by a retaliatory strike from Moscow. A radical scenario will bring to its limit all those weaknesses in the structure of European and international security that have been accumulating over a long period of time. In this case, the world order really risks collapsing in a classic form for the history of international relations—through an armed confrontation between major powers. The ...
... difference between the new doctrine and the previous version? How can the new doctrine affect strategic security? What reaction will the US have to the publication of this doctrine? Answering these questions are Russia’s leading experts in arms and international security: Oleg Krivolapov, Head of the Department of Military-Political Research at the Institute for US and Canadian Studies under the Russian Academy of Sciences; Dmitry Stefanovich, Research Fellow at the Center for International Security,...
Will Russia continue its “business as usual” aimed at maintaining the existing status-quo or will it be forced to review and to revise its positions towards Israel, Palestinians, Iran and its main partners in the Arab world?
The spectacular comeback of Donald Trump to the White House will undoubtedly have a profound impact on the US overall international positioning, as well as on specific dimensions of the US approaches to various regions of the world. Of course, the US foreign policy has a bipartisan...
Arab countries are not ready to significantly transform their policies and become actively involved in the conflict in the Middle East
Over fifty years ago, in October 1973, the largest energy crisis in history erupted. It was provoked by an oil embargo imposed by members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), as well as Egypt and Syria. The embargo was targeted against the United States and its allies who were assisting Israel in the Doomsday War. The member-states...
The North Korean nation has paid such a high price for its independence that it will never consider becoming a junior partner of either Moscow or Beijing
On October 14, President of Russia Vladimir Putin submitted to the State Duma a draft law on ratifying the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the Russian Federation and the DPRK, signed on June 19 during his last trip to this country. The Treaty was ratified On October 24. The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a special statement...
