... the mainstream expert community in Russia to open up to the West anytime soon
At the height of the Cold War, the Esalen Institute made a difference in Soviet-US relations, initiating and maintaining some of them through Esalen Track-2 and Track-1.5 Diplomacy.
Today Multi-Track Diplomacy remains of interest. Track-2 and Track-1.5 Diplomacy seem to complement and support Track-1 efforts by creating a favorable environment for negotiations, generating creative ideas, building trust, and generating ...
The growing gap between the ends that the US seeks in international relations and the means that it has available is particularly striking in the case of the so-called dual containment policy that Washington now pursues toward Russia and China
A couple of days ago, a Quad summit meeting in Sydney scheduled for May 24 was abruptly canceled. The US president had to pull out of his long-anticipated trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea. Instead, the heads of the four Quad member states got together...
... possible in 1958, whereas in 2023, as things stand now (although there’s no harm in dreaming, to be sure), it appears unrealistic. Who knows, maybe the ghosts of science diplomats of the postwar era would suggest a way to remedy the situation?
Science diplomacy is about people
The final stage of negotiating the Lacy-Zarubin agreement commenced on October 28, 1957 and took three months. On the U.S. side, the senior official was William Sterling Lacy, East-West Exchange Advisor to U.S. Secretary of State ...
... transformation stage some 10 years ago, anticipating global changes in the overall international system. As a global leader in the number of conflicts and potential crises, nations of the Middle East know the price of the current changes and strive to use diplomacy, mediation, and pragmatism to mitigate crises, including in the conflict in Ukraine.
Mediators
Aleksandr Aksenenok:
U.S. Policy Case for Middle East under New Conditions
On September 21–22, Russia and Ukraine exchanged the largest number ...
... well as threats to send more American and NATO troops to Eastern Europe. By doing that, the West doubles down on its initial refusal to accommodate Russian demands to stop the “military cultivation” of Ukraine and amassing NATO infrastructure on the ... ... “credibility of deterrence”, something that the parties are so willing to demonstrate to the other side, may turn from a buttress of diplomacy to its kiss of death.
... Orthodoxy experienced its first geopolitical schism in history. The situation is getting worse. This schism is expanding. Perhaps, diplomacy could help the churches not to further destroy this common tradition and history and look for compromise and find them ... ... Ukraine. There is no ban on arms supplies to Ukraine. But foreign military personnel are there, and in large quantities. Not thousands (as some mistakenly claim sometimes), but there are several hundred American, British and other military advisors there....
It is unlikely that we will see any breakthroughs at the upcoming Putin-Biden summit—but despite all the difficulties, there are still signs for optimism
Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have known each other for a long time—decades, in fact. This, however, made it no easier for them to agree to the meeting scheduled for June 16 in Geneva. The U.S.–Russia relations have seen a steady decline over the past few years, with all but few official contacts being suspended and the sides regularly trading...
... on specific issues, collaboration between the two countries’ private sectors and civil society perks up, the media gradually soften their rhetoric, bilateral projects in culture, education and science are gradually resumed.
Igor Ivanov:
Time for Diplomacy
Still, there are annoying exceptions to this general rule. In particular, the latest full-fledged Russia–U.S. summit in Helsinki in July 2018 failed to trigger improvements in bilateral relations. On the contrary, Donald Trump’s meeting ...
... discipline its European allies and to cement the transatlantic partnership. For many European NATO members, expulsions of diplomats are a symbolic gesture demonstrating their firm support of the US and its anti-Russian policies.
Michael Andreson:
Removed Diplomacy: Why U.S. Sanctions Against Russia Have Gone Stale
Clear enough, such a practice will not be limited to Russia only. Today hundreds, if not thousands of diplomatic officers all around the world find themselves hostage to problems they have nothing to do with. Western decision-makers seem to consider hosting foreign diplomats not as something natural and uncontroversial but rather as a sort of ...
... remained of the relationship.
The Navalny poisoning in August 2020, his dispatch to Germany for treatment, Germany’s public accusation that Russia had used a nerve agent to try to kill the opposition activist, Navalny’s return to Moscow from Berlin in ... ... foreign policy chief Josep Borrell undertook his trip with the specific purpose of gaining first-hand experience with Moscow diplomacy ahead of the EU’s Russia policy review set for March 2021. The current policy, which is based on the five principles ...
