Russia in Global Affairs

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RSCI Scopus

No. 4

2015 October/December

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Contents

The Inevitability of Fight

Fyodor A. Lukyanov

The East on the Western Doorstep

The Syrian Gambit

Sergey M. Minasyan

Saving the Cradle of Civilization

Shakhmardan Amirov

The Islamic State: Alternative Statehood?

Vasily A. Kuznetsov

Between a Crisis and a Catastrophe

Yevgeny Satanovsky

New Realities

System-Wide Interests versus National Interest

Nikolay A. Kosolapov

Dangers Looming Ahead

Foreign Policy Locked in Economic Nutshell

Non-Combat Theaters

New Eurasian Momentum

Timofei V. Bordachev

Megalomania of Megaregionalism

Yaroslav D. Lissovolik

Sanctions and the World Order

Aleksey Ivanov, Kirill Molodyko

Revising the Past and the Present

“A Remedy for National Narcissism”

Fyodor A. Lukyanov, Alexei I. Miller

A Different Viewpoint

Yevgeniy Rumyantsev

Evolution of China’s Foreign Strategies in the New Century

A Nation’s Common Denominator

Alexander V. Lomanov

Articles

The Inevitability of Fight

“Fifty years ago the streets of Leningrad taught me a lesson: if a fight is inevitable, hit first.” These words by Vladimir Putin have become a most quoted phrase of the past fall. Said at the Valdai International Discussion Club, it unambiguously conveys the underlying principle of Russia’s current foreign policy.

Fyodor A. Lukyanov

The Syrian Gambit

An important distinction of the operation in Syria is that Russia deftly exploited strategic surprise and retained the global military and political initiative. This was the second time in the past two years that Russia caught its counterparts in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East off guard.

Sergey M. Minasyan

Saving the Cradle of Civilization

Even if Syria’s conflict started as an internal problem, very soon it acquired an international dimension as a result of external financial and military support. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey play the key role in that process as both financiers and propagandists.

Shakhmardan Amirov

The Islamic State: Alternative Statehood?

Despite all obvious weaknesses of IS as a state-building project, it is very attractive for a certain number of people living in the region. This attractiveness is associated not with the confessional nature of the state itself, but with the seeming authenticity of the Islamic State.

Vasily A. Kuznetsov

Between a Crisis and a Catastrophe

By the middle of the second decade of the 21st century it has become clear that the world is moving towards a balance of power that was more typical of the 17th and 18th centuries, with the appropriate geopolitical adjustments. Western influence, with its possibilities and military capabilities, is decreasing, while the East and the South are rising.

Yevgeny Satanovsky

System-Wide Interests versus National Interest

By creating a mechanism for shaping its own system-wide interest, Russia would make the first major step towards renouncing the uncritical copying of Western forms. In this way, Russia could focus on substantive aspects of Western forms and, at the same time, create its own, in both foreign and domestic policies.

Nikolay A. Kosolapov

Dangers Looming Ahead

The United States will develop new weapons in cooperation with its closest allies (Great Britain, Israel, and possibly Japan), which will accelerate R&D and reduce production and procurement costs for America, but at the same time make it harder for Russia to provide an adequate and timely response.

Foreign Policy Locked in Economic Nutshell

Extremes in foreign policy and personal ambitions of those who make decisions at the “macro” level may push a feeble or even growing economy to the limit, thus causing its rapid destruction or plunging it into a period of degradation that may last for decades.

New Eurasian Momentum

For hundreds of years Eurasia was nothing more than a “bridge” and a place where external actors could realize their interests. But today it is for the first time acquiring its own significance. In the future, it will seek to build a broad Eurasian community encompassing not only the Eurasian Economic Union and China as its “core,” but also other regional players.

Timofei V. Bordachev

Megalomania of Megaregionalism

With the formation of the TPP, regionalism is advancing to a new, transcontinental level and turning into mega-regionalism, which undermines the basis for multilateral liberalization of world trade. It brings to the fore the right of the strongest and most prosperous countries to identify the vectors of economic integration.

Yaroslav D. Lissovolik

Sanctions and the World Order

Liberal Leviathan uses large-scale economic sanctions to demarcate its space. Sanctions are not a reaction – punishment or an attempt to respond to some threats to national security – but rather the first step in a rational strategy of managing the anarchic international society by the new rules.

Aleksey Ivanov, Kirill Molodyko

“A Remedy for National Narcissism”

National historical narratives describing the grandeur of “our” nation and its struggle for good against evil are the intrinsic ailment of history. But there are also historians who take such narratives with a grain of salt. If society prosecutes historians who lay the groundwork for critical public dialogue about the past, it will lose the only effective remedy for national narcissism.

Fyodor A. Lukyanov, Alexei I. Miller

A Different Viewpoint

Beijing is trying to bring the understanding of China’s role in World War II inside the country and abroad in line with its present status in global politics and economics. But these efforts bring some controversial facts to the surface.

Yevgeniy Rumyantsev

Evolution of China’s Foreign Strategies in the New Century

The “One Belt, One Road” strategic initiative is a focus and priority for China’s foreign strategy in the new century. What is particularly interesting is that this inter-regional cooperation initiative driven by concrete projects aims to link the Eurasian Economic Union with systemic policies and institutional designs.

A Nation’s Common Denominator

That China may come up with a viable alternative system of values is not taken too seriously by the West. Russia should look at this soberly and impartially. Objectively, China is determined to ensure that its own values gain influence, projected first and foremost on China’s periphery.

Alexander V. Lomanov