INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
The paper provides a comparative analysis study of the dynamics and mechanisms of the strategic stability transformation both during the Cold War and at present. Drawing on the analysis of the factors affecting strategic stability in different time periods, the author outlines the priorities of this transformation. Its basic principles are confined to the stability of nuclear deterrence in any realistic scenarios and do not provide for practical action. Hence, one should distinguish them from applied solutions for calculating military-strategic balances and elaboration of arms control agreements. The latter depend on the current strategic landscape subject to constant, sometimes drastic change, as both the Cold War history and the recent developments testify. The choice of particular type of representation of strategic stability is determined by the nature of the most dangerous ongoing trends, and relies on a set of three basic groups of factors (political-military, military-technical, and military-strategic) existing at a given time. This necessitates constant revaluation of these factors and development of new practical measures to build up nuclear deterrence.
The paper assesses the current set of relevant factors affecting stability of nuclear deterrence, and then compares it with the commonly used model of strategic stability based on the logic of arms control negotiations of the late 1980s. The author highlights the limitations of the latter model applicability to the present strategic landscape, and outlines the key factors that erode the current understanding of strategic stability (as it was stipulated in the 1990 U.S.–Soviet Joint Statement). In particular the author emphasizes the increasing complexity of international landscape as compared to the Cold War period: new and unanticipated challenges have affected all three above-mentioned groups of factors. The paper ends up with the analysis of the possible developments in the field of arms control that could alleviate tensions and increase strategic stability.
Contemporary international relations witness an ever-increasing tension between the United States and China. In an attempt to capture and conceptualize this trend, a new term was introduced in the IR academic discourse — a ‘Cold War 2.0’ (or new Cold War). Ambiguous and vague as it is, it may nevertheless be instrumental for the study of certain aspects of contemporary world politics. In particular, it allows one to consider the developments of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue (KPNI) within the broader framework of emerging US-China confrontation. The first section examines current debates over the ‘Cold War 2.0’ concept both in Russian and foreign academic literature, and identifies its country-specific interpretations in the United States, Russia and the PRC. The second section shows that, despite its contested and controversial nature, the ‘Cold War 2.0’ concept provides useful insights on how concrete steps of global and regional actors aimed at enhancing their military capabilities are threatening to turn the Korean Peninsula into the arena of a new bipolar confrontation. In the third section, drawing on the Harvard negotiation model and the experience of 2005 Agreement, the author attempts to identify the zone of potential agreement on the KPNI under new conditions. The author concludes that both the leading powers and the countries of the Korean Peninsula utilize the ‘Cold War 2.0’ rhetoric to get additional domestic and foreign policy dividends. Thus, the DPRK relies upon the nuclear factor, while the Republic of Korea tries to balance between the great powers and to gain more weight in the international arena by building on the ‘medium power’ concept. In the long term, such policies are fraught with uncontrolled escalation that could lead to a new full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula.
REGIONAL ISSUES OF WORLD POLITICS
Today, there is a broad international consensus on the need to ensure carbon neutrality and, more broadly, to address global environmental issues. By promoting increasingly stringent ecological standards and climate regulations in the energy sector and consistently forcing others to emulate its example, the European Union seeks to present itself as a normative power in this area. At the same time, the EU leaders face the need to mobilize public support for the idea of the sustainable climate-oriented transition in order to mitigate its negative economic and social effects. This, in turn, requires the construction and promotion of the compelling and unambiguous energy transition narrative designed to legitimize the EU’s environmental and energy policy. This paper identifies and examines the key elements of such a narrative propagated within the European Union, as well as assesses its perception by various groups of the European countries’ population. The author also outlines a few alternative ‘greentransition’ narratives, which have arisen as a reaction to both the deficiencies of the EU’s energy policy and the challenges posed by the Ukrainian crisis. The author concludes that the EU leaders and the non-governmental and non-profit actors backing them have managed to build a broad and solid public consensus around the official narrative of the energy transition. Under these conditions, one of the central objectives facing the EU leaders is to maintain and strengthen the attained level of public support for its policies, given new transition-related challenges to the territorial integrity and political cohesion of the union. The latter include high inflation rates and the general rise in the cost of living, negative tendencies in the labor market due to its structural transformation, as well as the growing economic heterogeneity of the member states.
Politicians and scholars generally agree that the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union (‘Brexit’) is a unique phenomenon caused by a specific combination of domestic political, economic and social factors, which cannot recur in any other EU country, at least in the foreseeable future. The paper challenges these assumptions by advancing two hypotheses. Firstly, the author argues that Eurosceptic sentiments are almost as common in France as they once were in the UK, and, secondly, that it exactly in France where the next referendum on membership in the European Union could take place. In order to support these hypotheses, in the first section the author examines the main causes and the background of Brexit. The author identifies four key factors: 1) growing discontent of the local population with social and economic issues, which the supporters of Brexit ascribed to the inflow of cheap labor from Eastern Europe; 2) concerns about the possibility of losing national sovereignty as the power of EU supranational bodies increases; 3) support for Brexit on the part of certain political elites; 4) post-imperial syndrome. The second section shows that similar objective trends and public sentiments are developing in France, although can take different forms. As in the UK, certain segments of the French population show growing concern about the prospect of losing national sovereignty given the country’s declining influence within the EU, and call to curb immigration (mainly from North Africa). Additionally, what makes France’s case really unique is that both rightand left-wing eurosceptics are consistently strengthening their influence in the Fifth Republic. All this imposes greater demands on the current president-euroenthusiast E. Macron: his failure may provoke a systemic crisis within the EU, which it might not endure.
‘SOFT POWER’ IN WORLD POLITICS
Public diplomacy is one of the key foreign policy instruments of the European Union for strengthening its international stance. In that regard, Brussels pays special attention to ensuring trust-based relations with the United States, which traditionally acts as the EU’s leading trade and military partner. The apparent cooling in transatlantic relations provoked by harmful rhetoric and practices of D. Trump administration forced the EU to focus on non-traditional channels of interacting with the American audience. In this context, the analysis of the EU’s attempts to adapt its public diplomacy programmes in the United States to the new realities is of particular interest. The first section outlines the political, economic, administrative, and image risks faced by EU diplomats in this area during the presidency of D. Trump (2017−2020). The second section examines the main thematic priorities, mechanisms and projects of the EU public diplomacy aimed at the American audience. The author argues that during the period under review the EU placed special emphasis on advocacy, cultural diplomacy, and exchange programmes for young people. The author concludes that, although European diplomats failed to achieve a qualitative improvement in transatlantic relations during D. Trump’s tenure, the EU public diplomacy demonstrated resilience and flexibility in the face of adverse circumstances. Indeed, the EU diplomats proved their creativity in developing innovative programmes which can be instrumental for future development of the EU public diplomacy in general.
The Central Asian region, with its rich reserves of energy resources and unique geopolitical position, is of particular importance for the modern foreign policy strategy of the People’s Republic of China. At the same time, the PRC’s public diplomacy and soft power in the Central Asian republics remain relatively understudied, despite the overall emphasis given to these issues by the Chinese researchers. It is this gap that this paper is partly intended to fill. The first section of the paper examines the evolution of the discourse on ‘public diplomacy’ in China and its perception in the Chinese academic community. The second section identifies the reasons for mainstreaming public diplomacy agenda in China’s foreign policy towards the Central Asian countries in recent years. The author shows that enhancement of economic and political cooperation between China and regional countries was not matched by a concurrent improvement of the China’s public image, on the contrary there has been a noticeable rise in Sinophobia. It was against this background that the PRC turned its attention to the use of public diplomacy tools as it launched the Belt and Road Initiative. The third section outlines the main thrusts of the Chinese public diplomacy in the region, including PR-diplomacy, media-diplomacy and humanitarian diplomacy. The final section identifies both the endogenous and exogenous challenges faced by the PRC’s public diplomacy in the Central Asian countries. The author argues that the competitiveness and effectiveness of China’s public diplomacy could be increased through expanding cooperation in the humanitarian sphere, implementation of digital technologies and media 2.0, as well as by increased engagement of non-governmental commercial and non-profit actors in interaction with the regional public. Either way, the author concludes that the Central Asian region will play an increasing role in the Chinese public diplomacy.