After the June 2013 election when Hassan Rouhani became president of Iran, Iranian foreign policy changed course. The fundamental transformation is the result of his decision to open up a fresh dialogue with the United States and other Great Powers to resolve the nuclear stand-off that would end the country’s isolation, lift the biting US-led sanctions and allow Iran to open a new chapter in its economic policy and international diplomacy.
The article discusses the results of Russian foreign policy since the collapse of the Soviet Union against the background of major new global and regional international trends and the policy of other major world powers. The author argues that Russia should work for preventing a new structured confrontation in Europe, maintaining international stability, and keeping the world from sliding into a big war which seems to be more likely now than ever before in the last 50 years.
The post-2003 Persian Gulf sub-region has witnessed intensified geopolitical conflicts and competition between Iran and the Gulf Arab states, particularly between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Scholars and experts have mostly analysed the conflicts through political and strategic prisms while neglecting their economic dimensions. This article analyses the various post-2003 conflicts between Iran and the Gulf Arab states with a focus on how economic integration or the lack thereof creates the incentives to resolve or sustain the conflicts.
Twenty-five years have passed since the Cold War, but no stable international order has been created. The idea about a Western-centric unipolar world has failed, and a multipolar system is yet to emerge, though it’s hard to comment on how it may function properly.
