The End of the End of History On December 25 of this year we will mark 25 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many in Russia and the West were optimistic about the seeming imminent integration of Russia into a Western-led liberal democratic global order. The United States, in particular, fresh off its ‘victory’ in the Cold War, could hardly restrain its triumphalism as it stood astride the world as the sole superpower. Andrew C. Kuchins | November 2016 | Strategic Analysis
The Evolution of National Security Thinking in Post-Soviet Russia This article contributes to the rich body of literature on Russian security perceptions and analyses how Russian security thinking evolved over the last 20 years. The focus of the article is on how Russian security perspective shifted from the goal of assuring Russian security by integration and cooperation with the West to the idea of Russia’s own separate geo-economic project and the goal of reducing the country’s dependencies on the West. Security in this article is understood both as a military-political and as an economic phenomenon. Maxim Bratersky | November 2016 | Strategic Analysis
The Contemporary World between Integration and Secession: A Challenge for Russia The article discusses two major trends in contemporary world politics—the disintegration of the nation-state and supranational integration—and analyses their nature, causes and significance. Ivan Krivushin | November 2016 | Strategic Analysis
Russia’s Participation in International Environmental Cooperation While environmental issues attract growing interest all over the world Russia has kept aside from this trend for a long time. Its participation in international environmental cooperation has always been determined primarily by the external policy’s objectives. In Soviet times, participation in global environmental initiatives was a channel of collaboration with the West. In the 1990s, it was a means of integration into the international community and one of the major areas of cooperation with the US. Igor A. Makarov | November 2016 | Strategic Analysis
US–Russia Confrontation and a New Global Balance Although the US–Russia relations are hardly the central axis of contemporary international relations, the systemic confrontation between Moscow and Washington, which began in 2014, will become a decisive factor for the emerging international order. This confrontation was caused by factors much deeper than a mere clash of national interests in Ukraine or Syria. Dmitry Suslov | November 2016 | Strategic Analysis
Russia and the European Union: Lessons Learned and Goals Ahead The current crisis and pause in development of the EU–Russia relations provide a unique chance to shed the burden of past problems and start new relations from scratch. Both sides should sort out their values and get rid of the ballast generated by the bureaucratic inertia or false understandings of partnership. Russia and Europe are unlikely to evolve a common vision for the future. Their future is not in unity but in co-existing next to each other. It is time that Russia and the EU clearly formulate their real interests and try to make relations predictable. Timofei Bordachev | November 2016 | Strategic Analysis
Russia’s Pivot to Asia: Myth or Reality? The article discusses the changes in Russia’s policy towards Asia, arguing that Russia’s pivot to Asia is a reality, one that is motivated by both political and economic interests. And although that shift is not progressing as quickly as some might want and occasionally encounters difficulties, the process has definitely begun and is in all likelihood irreversible. Only a small, marginal segment of Russian society continues to dream of unity with Europe—which itself has entered a period of severe crisis. Alexander Lukin | November 2016 | Strategic Analysis
Power Politics: How China and Russia Reshape the World by Rob de Wijk A lot of literature has appeared in recent years on how Russia and China have come to present a common challenge to the US-led world order. But the author of the book Power Politics: How China and Russia Reshape the World, Rob de Wijk, has propounded a different theory to prove a case rather in an ominous way that the old-style power politics has never gone away from the global scene even after the end of the Cold War. P. Stobdan | November 2016 | Strategic Analysis
Diplomatic Dimensions of Maritime Challenges for India in the 21st Century, by Yogendra Kumar The book records the story of India’s development into a modern maritime nation ready to take on the challenges of the twenty-first century. It also tells us how India has steadily built upon its nascent capacities since the early years of independence. In doing so, it begins by giving a brief historical overview of the Indian maritime tradition. Surajit Mahalanobis | October 2016 | Journal of Defence Studies
Is Turkey’s insistence on a military role in Mosul a strategic miscalculation? Turkey’s insistence on a role for itself risks escalating the already fraught sectarian situation in Iraq, undermining Iraqi sovereignty and not yielding any significant military or political gains for itself. Md. Muddassir Quamar | October 28, 2016 | IDSA Comments
