... which his main book on international relations was published.
Unlike other general wars - the Thirty Years' War in Europe, the wars of revolutionary France (1789 - 1815), the First and Second World Wars in the 20th century - the Cold War between the USSR and the USA ended without winners or losers. After the confrontation in Europe, which was alarming to all mankind, ended, the international community, with serious reason, expected qualitative changes in principles which should be dominant in relations ...
... the scale and ramifications of allied relations. Their ability to pursue a foreign policy based on medium and small powers is negligible, despite the fact that Moscow, unlike Beijing, has formal allied relations with several countries of the former USSR. Among them, only Belarus is a reliable ally of Russia amid the current military-political conflict with the West, which is confirmed by the significant number of economic, political and military deterrence measures that the United States and its ...
... like borderline sci-fi. Parallels defy any of the known and relevant geometries. And there is no need to wait for a broad celebration of the anniversary, given the current amplitude of tension between Moscow and Washington. This is not 1988, when the USSR post office issued a commemorative stamp in honor of the 30th anniversary of the agreement, which by that time had already expired. They say, it was the wrong era. It is nevertheless a memorable date.
In light of that watershed, it is appropriate ...
... world. In this regard, only the relations between Russia and North Korea or Vietnam are comparable in terms of the strength of the common historical experience, but the Cuban case is truly exceptional. For all the seriousness of the involvement of the USSR in the Korean or Vietnamese conflicts, it was precisely the consolidation of Moscow in Cuba that became an existential challenge for their common enemy, the United States. Moreover, the support of China has traditionally been no less important for ...
... grandeur of national achievements and the country’s decline in everyday life was staggering. The situation was aggravated by the Cold War, enormous defense spending and support for freeloaders all over the world, who said the right words but betrayed the USSR at the first opportunity.
What could be done about these countless problems? How could they be sure their resolve would not sink under the weight of an indifferent bureaucracy? How could they prevent the system from overheating and losing control ...
... then?
First of all, in order to form a common supra-ethnic identity we need not only a union of states, with, for example, uniform customs tariffs. A "
humanitarian
dimension" is also required. But if we were to look at the experience of the USSR, territorial communities created by people only have a humanitarian component if a certain common meaning is accepted by the majority of the population. Is it realistic to find a single meaning in our case; after all, the territory of the future ...
... tradition of statehood for centuries. The small new countries of Eastern Europe existed in an incomprehensible status for two decades and, after the Second World War, actually lost their sovereignty in favour of one of the superpowers — mainly the USSR.
The second wave of sovereignty is associated with the collapse of the world colonial empires, whose metropolises are located in Western Europe. The collapse of the British, Belgian, Dutch, Portuguese and French empires led to the emergence of dozens ...
... completion of the “shrinkage” of the order which obtained its approximate features as a result of the World War II. Over the next 25 years (1945 — 1970), this order was “finalised” during the war in Korea, the US intervention in Vietnam, the USSR’s military actions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, several indirect wars between the USSR and the US in the Middle East, the completion of the process of disintegration of the European colonial empires, as well as a significant number of smaller,...
... Transnistria, Chechnya, and Dagestan), but most of these conflicts were of a relatively modest scale and duration.
Andrey Kortunov:
А Hen Hatching Ducklings: How Russia Deals with Its Sphere of Influence
Military conflicts within the territory of the former USSR were often successfully "frozen" and only from time to time did they draw attention to themselves with outbreaks of escalation. The gloomy prophecies about the spread of nuclear weapons across the territory of the former USSR, about multimillion ...
In a few decades, or sooner, Moscow will have to take on an even greater responsibility, which Russia got rid of in 1991
It is unlikely that Moscow would simply observe the processes taking place on its immediate periphery. The real challenge may be that in a few decades, or sooner, Moscow will have to take on an even greater responsibility, which Russia got rid of in 1991, writes Valdai Club Programme Director
Timofei Bordachev
.
Through all the discussions that accompanied the preparation of...
