... the growth of its nuclear forces, there are other powers who have joined the nuclear weapons states club as independent players. The United Kingdom and France, which developed their weapons in the 1950s and 1960s, have always been U.S. allies within NATO, and their weapons were always considered by Moscow to be part of the Western bloc’s combined nuclear arsenal. Cold War-era nuclear bipolarity that coincided with a similar ideological and geopolitical division (China remained largely introverted during that period) transformed into multipolarity. Strategic stability ceased being an issue for Moscow and Washington exclusively to tackle.
When India and Pakistan both acquired nuclear weapons at the turn of the ...
... participate, that would raise questions on what ceilings would be set on number of warheads, missiles and delivery systems, Antonov added. Would
China’s nuclear arsenal grow
to the levels of the United States and Russia’s, or would the original START signatories’ arsenals be drawn down to China’s, he asked rhetorically.
The existing treaty is between the United States and Russia.
Antonov termed the 11-year-old START treaty “the gold standard of arms control agreements.”
A new agreement “signals to the world … the United States ...
... policy.
Beijing's economic diplomacy seems to be producing results and bringing the two states closer together. In this respect, China has succeeded in modernising the Moldovan infrastructure despite obstacles rooted in corruption. This makes Moldova a potential ... ... be accentuated if Maia Sandu confirms her pro-western policy. Gaguzia could gain in importance, as a move towards the EU and NATO could lead to the resurgence of separatism in this region.
Resources
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA), «The European Borders ...
... the egocentric president will have an epiphany and suddenly embrace Western values or ideas of transatlantic solidarity. If anything, the reverse is likely: the inevitable difficulty of economic recovery and likely escalation of the confrontation with China will push the Trump administration to ramp up pressure on the EU even further.
“The European Union is worse than China. Just smaller,” Trump said just last year, complaining of taxes and tariffs. The president considers his decisive policy on ...
... nations, militarizing the Arctic brings a great deal of concern for a number of reasons. These include the asymmetric power balance between Russia and other Arctic nations in the region, an increase in bilateral partnership cooperation between Russia and China, a lack of mandate at the Arctic Council to discuss military security issues among the Arctic nations, etc. As a result, I think the NATO build-up and its recent military exercises are counteractions to respond to Russia's militarization of the Arctic region in the event of asymmetric power relations.
I still, however, think that the Arctic should be considered as a unique region, ...
... prospects of developing Arctic hydrocarbon resources and the Northern Sea Route became the top priority, while in the mid-2010s, those issues were partially eclipsed by Moscow’s new confrontation with Washington and a sharp decline in relations with its NATO allies.
China is thousands of miles away from the Arctic, so its interests in the region differ widely from those of Russia. They primarily stem from China’s position as one of the two leading global powers of the twenty-first century, and, on a more formal ...
... Karabakh settlement, but will still be locked in a bitter confrontation over the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Iran and Turkey will play their own parts without joining either the Russian or the Western sides, although Ankara will formally remain a NATO member. China will step up its economic presence, although, in the near future, the Caucasus will not become Beijing’s political priority comparable to Central Asia.
...
sceptical
to that advice. Ceteris paribus, the difference of expenditures could have been mitigated by a joint position of NATO states on other more pressing issues; however, it seems that internal discontent over U.S. position is on its rise.
If one ... ... United States is very inconsistent in its policies towards North Korea, the Middle East (predominantly Syria, Turkey and Iran), China, Venezuela, and Ukraine. And this inconsistency doesn’t seem to be a part of a grand strategy defined within the laws ...
... social values.
The fundamental error of Russian foreign policy since the mid-1990s has been the fixation on the problem of NATO expansion.
The basis of this cooperation was the European idea of bringing Russia into ever-closer alignment with European ... ... economic might and international ambitions are growing rapidly, is falling further and further behind the level of interaction with China. In combination with the significant weakening of relations with the EU, this creates a threat to Russia’s geopolitical ...
... treated as such. And it has been since the days of the Cold War. As proof of this, we can point to the nature of joint exercises and exchanges of military delegations; intelligence cooperation; military-technical policies; and Sweden’s participation in NATO missions abroad.
Russia and China already have a document in place that, in extremely vague terms, describes possible military cooperation in the event of a threat to the security of one of the parties.
We are talking about the 2001 Treaty of Good-Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation ...
