A growing chaos in international relations in recent years has provoked an intense debate in political, expert and academic communities on the future of a world order in the 21st century. This debate focuses not only on the shifts in balance of power after the end of the Cold War but also on the erosion of the legal and normative framework of the world order. This essay makes a contribution to intellectual deliberations on these crucial issues. Representatives of two generations of the Russian international relations scholars – Anatoly Andreevich Gromyko (1932–2017) and Aleksey Anatol’evich Gromyko – share their views on major threats to international peace and outline key pillars to ensuring survival of human civilization. The essay examines such issues as arms control, with special focus on weapons of mass destruction; continuing importance of the institute of a nation-state in the context of globalization, growing interdependence and increased role of non-state actors; primacy of the rule of law over the rule of force, as enshrined in the United Nations Charter, and, finally, great powers’ responsibility for global governance and global stability. Exploring the prospects for a democratic world order the authors conclude that this idea is not completely utopian if the recurrence of the Cold War and zero-sum game logic is avoided.

This paper examines established procedure of assessing national and military security of the Russian Federation and outlines ways how to improve it. The author unveils deficiencies of the current set of indicators for measuring national and military security of the Russian Federation established by existing legal provisions. He argues that a methodological framework of assessing military security developed by the 46th Central Research and Development Institute of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation can provide a basis for exploring these issues since it allows to harmonize specific methodologies, models and computational tasks, to evaluate the results and to produce generalized assessments of progress in the development of military establishment of the Russian Federation. The paper examines how this methodological framework addresses both a ‘direct’ computational task (forecasting level of military security of the Russian Federation depending on the parameters of the national military establishment), and a ‘reverse’ computational task (setting a target level of military security and defining the parameters of the national military establishment capable of ensuring military security of the Russian Federation over certain time horizon while taking into account anticipated constraints in country’s resource capabilities). The author concludes that a further improvement of methodology for assessing military security as a critical element of national security implies development of an indicator-based approach meant to facilitate making a rational choice of an optimal option for ensuring military security of the Russian Federation. One part of the solution could be a mathematical modelling of a decision-making process and a formalization of a target level of military security on the basis of a fuzzy set theory.

This paper examines one of the key issues in relations between the Great Britain and the Bolshevik government during the first months after the October period of the Great Russian Revolution of 1917–1922 – participation of the Soviet Russia in military operations on the side of the Entente in the final stage of the First World War. The author emphasizes that position of the British political elites regarding the seizure of power in Russia by Vladimir Lenin and his supporters was not as straightforward as it was portrayed by the Soviet and Russian historiography: the British politicians faced a dilemma since they did not want to see Russia either as a neutral country or an enemy. On the basis of contemporaries’ memoirs and diaries, previously unstudied official documents as well as a comparative analysis of the Russian and Western historiography, especially the recent publications, the author assesses successes and failures of both the Foreign Office and the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs in the late 1917 and early 1918 – the least studied period in the history of the Soviet-British relations. The paper shows that apart from a continuous fighting on the fronts of the Great War, these successes and failures were attributable to a number of factors, including political struggle in both countries, strategic foreign policy objectives of both the Bolsheviks and the British elites, as well as the interference of the third parties – be it allies or enemies. In this difficult context, practical steps of the foreign ministries of both countries primarily depended on the outcomes of the intense polemics between the British and the Bolshevist politicians, diplomats and opinion leaders. Special focus is on the relations between the Soviet Russia and Great Britain during the Brest peace negotiations and particularly on the mission of R.H. Bruce Lockhart. The author concludes that throughout this period neither side managed to win the diplomatic duel: Great Britain had lost its strategic ally whereas Russia after four years of struggle had to repel the military intervention of its ex-partners in the Entente.

The existence of parallel trends in development of current international system, that of growing controversies between the leading states, on the one hand, and increasing global economic interdependence, on the other, raises question about their possible interrelation. The paper examines the impact of close economic relations among major powers on their increased competition for positional advantages in the sphere of international regulation and institutional power. High relevance of this issue stems from the fact that integration of one’s national preferences in the regulatory structures provides country with a long-term influence and increases its international competitiveness. The author identifies key features of current relations between the world’s leading powers and demonstrates that the 2010s witnessed a reemergence of intense rivalry among great powers as the rise of alternative centers of power challenges international position of the United States. The paper proceeds with an examination of competing theoretical approaches to assessing stability of the current configuration of international system as well as to explaining the impact of economic interdependence on international conflict. The author emphasizes that the appeal to economic interdependence has become one of the main lines of argumentation in the Western expert community since the end of the 2000s in terms of justifying prospects for a peaceful and relatively conflict-free evolution of the world order. However, international developments in the late 2000s-2010s show that the sphere of institutional regulation of global economy is rapidly becoming one of key areas of competition between the leading powers. The paper also examines certain social and technological trends that can limit a further growth of global economic interdependence. The current situation turns out to be the ‘worst of possible worlds’, in which the growing states’ needs for access to world markets are compounded by significant variations in their competitive advantages, and resulting differences in their preferences regarding the evolution of international economic regulation. The conclusion is drawn that such combination entails risks of a further aggravation of contradictions between the major international players.

The year 2018 is rich with anniversaries. In the current international context the 50^th anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is certainly having special relevance. However, in the view of the need to examine the prospects of ensuring strategic stability, the role of nuclear weapons in world politics and the contours of the new world order yet another anniversary – twenty years from the beginning of the ‘second nuclear age’ – is just as important. In order to identify the substantive aspects of this phenomenon this paper provides a comparative analysis of distinctive features of both the first and the second nuclear ages. The author identifies the causes and prerequisites for the beginning of the ‘first nuclear age’ and examines, on the basis of a wide range of policy papers and analytical reports, the evolution of the United States’ approaches to nuclear strategy, deterrence and military and political goal setting. Special focus is on such issues as the achievement of strategic parity between the Soviet Union and the United States and the role of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Agreement and the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in the development of the concept of strategic stability and informal code of conduct of nuclear powers. The paper emphasizes that although the ‘first nuclear age’ coincides chronologically with the Cold War, these two phenomena are not identical. As for the ‘second nuclear age’, the author links its emergence with such developments as India and Pakistan joining the nuclear ‘club’, long-range missile tests carried out by the DPRK, and the revision of the U.S. policy regarding the anti-missile defense which led to the abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The author concludes that defining characteristics of the ‘second nuclear age’ include the retention of the ‘central deterrence’ accompanied by a growing importance of new political formats involving both nuclear and non-nuclear states, many of which have culturally specific approaches to military policy and strategic planning. All these factors combined form a backbone of military and political interactions between the leading powers within the emerging world order.

The United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, victorious for the Brexit supporters, has become one of the most discussed international political events of 2016 and forced policy makers and academics to take a fresh look at prospects of the European integration. In this connection a case of France is of special interest. The author emphasizes that although France was one of the founding members of all European institutions, Paris has always been a difficult partner to Brussels, and Euroscepticism has deep roots in France. The paper examines the genesis and subsequent evolution of the French Euroscepticism and identifies current political positions of the Eurosceptic parties in France. In that context the author emphasizes that Euroscepticism is usually associated with far-right and nationalist political forces but in France it is also represented by left-wing parties. For example, a democratic socialist political party ‘La France Insoumise’, led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who won an impressive 18 percent of the votes in the last presidential elections, harshly criticizes Brussel and does not rule out the possibility of France leaving the EU. The paper notes a general trend towards political polarization in the French society, accompanied by strengthening of the non-systemic candidates’ positions. At the same time traditional political parties, such as rightcenter ‘Les Républicains’, seek to adapt to changing preferences of the French electorate. They adopt certain Eurosceptic slogans and strident rhetoric against the EU. The author notes, that in doing so they follow the road travelled by the Conservative Party of Great Britain, which ended up in the European Union membership referendum. The author concludes that Marine Le Pen’s presidential electoral defeat in 2017 does not imply a defeat of the French Euroscepticism. On the contrary, both Eurosceptics and nationalists ceased to be marginalized and have strengthened their positions. Therefore, the possibility of Marine Le Pen’s assumption of the presidency should not be ruled out.

Examination of both theoretical and practical aspects of ‘soft power’ is currently one of the most dynamic research fields within studies of power in international relations. Much of scholarly attention is drawn to various indexes and ratings, designed to evaluate the ‘soft power’ of the leading actors of world politics. However, credibility and relevance of their respective methodologies continue to raise concern. This paper addresses the most common approaches to measuring ‘soft power’. With concrete examples the author examines the strengths and weaknesses of sociological and ‘electoral’ approaches, as well as technical capacities and limitations of cybermetrics intended to measure the level of ‘soft power’ of an international actor. The author concludes that none of these methods could be a single most effective means of assessing ‘soft power’, and a combination of rating research, sociological approach and cybermetrics seems most appropriate and promising. An integral index of ‘soft power’ should be inferred by a combination of quantitative indexes, representing objective indicators, interviews with experts and focus groups, and cybermetrics, based on the study of the most representative media, both traditional and social media. The author emphasizes that the outlined measures could bring expected results only if the notion of ‘soft power’ becomes more conventional and fully operational. This, however, will require a dialogue among experts at the international level.