The Great Patriotic War is one of the highlights in the history of Soviet-American cooperation. The USSR and the United States managed to overcome the inertia of mutual mistrust that persisted throughout most of the interwarperiod, taking together the lead in the fight against the Axis powers. However, rapprochement between the two future superpowers was neither plain nor swift; rather was it constantly hampered by mutual suspicion, aggravated by differences in their political cultures. Under these conditions, the fate of their alliance depended on the willingness of the ‘Big Three’ leaders to respect each other’s interest and concerns, as well as on the personal initiative and determination of individual politicians and diplomats. In this regard, the figure of M.M. Litvinov, appointed ambassador of the USSR to the United States at the most alarming and dangerous moment of the Great Patriotic War, deserves particular attention. Having played a major role in the Soviet-American cooperation in 1941–1943, M.M. Litvinov has been then forgotten for many years in both Soviet and Russian historiography. On the basis of new archive materials, the authors reexamine the activities of M.M. Litvinov as an ambassador to the United States and the specifics of his relationship with J.V. Stalin and V.M. Molotov during the period under review. The first section covers the initial steps of M.M. Litvinov in his new position. Special attention is paid to his efforts aimed at clarifying the Soviet position on the most sensitive issues of bilateral relations and establishing contacts with various groups of the American political, economic and intellectual elites. The second section analyzes M.M. Litvinov’s activities in the context of increasing contradictions between the Allies with regard to the opening of the second front and disruption of supplies under lend-lease. The authors show that M.M. Litvinov used all the diplomatic tools available to defend the interests of the USSR, instantly reacting to any changes in the moods of the U.S. military and political establishment and immediately reporting them to Moscow. In this context, the authors question the widespread claims in historiography about the ambassador’s excessive independence and willfulness. On the contrary, M.M. Litvinov can be said to have consistently adhered to the official foreign policy line of the Soviet leadership in both his speeches and practical steps. This indicates the need for further study of the M.M. Litvinov’s figure in order to avoid oversimplified, cliched assessments of this personality.

Theory represents the highest form of scientific knowledge in any discipline, a sort of certificate of maturity of the latter, and, at the same time, the key to its systematic teaching and understanding. From this point of view, international studies show a somewhat paradoxical picture. On the one hand, at the moment there is no shortage of either theoretical studies of international political issues or textbooks on the theory of international relations. On the other hand, their common leitmotif remains the idea that international studies either have not yet acquired a full-f ledged theory, or, due to their inherent complexity, dynamism and inconsistency are not subject to systematic generalization in principle. As a result, teaching of the IR theory turns out to be equally inconvenient for the lecturers, if they want to not just bombard students with terms and personalities, but teach them to effectively use different concepts and approaches, and for students. The author argues that these difficulties stem not only from the objective complexity of international processes and problems, but also from the subjective theoretical, methodological and philosophical specifics of the textbooks on the IR theory. To substantiate this claim this paper examines a selection of modern Russian and foreign textbooks on IR theory. The first section summarizes their key advantages, which include, first of all, the fact that they all successfully perform an educational function, introducing the reader to the key approaches, schools and theories that form the ‘body’ of modern IR theory. In this regard, one can easily find both textbooks specially designed for an unprepared audience which provide an introduction to the discipline, and publications containing an in-depth analysis of the driving forces and internal logic of the IR theory development. At the same time, as shown in the second section, all modern textbooks on IR theory share a number of common short-comings, which can be divided into methodological and philosophical ones. The former include not sufficiently substantiated logic of presentation, the lack of clear criteria for structuring the material and explicitly formulated principles for selecting approaches to be considered. The latter imply reliance on extremely shaky philosophical assumptions, which, consciously or not, reproduce post-modernist views on the problems of ontology and epistemology of international relations and international studies. And it is in a critical revision of these basic philosophical principles where, according to the author, lies the key to addressing the problems in both teaching the IR theory and formulating the theory of international relations in the strict sense.

In the digital age, images have pervaded almost all spheres of public life and politics. International relations are no exception. The visual dimension of world politics attracts increasing attention which resulted in the emergence of the so-called visual turn in the theory of international relations. It gained particular prominence within the framework of constructivism and particularly within one of the central and most widespread constructivist theories, i.e. the securitization theory. The first section of the paper examines the concept of ‘visual turn’. The second section considers the current state of art of the securitization theory. The third section outlines key features and possible implications of ‘visual securitization’ to the study of international relations. To this end, the authors refer to a resonant case of a Syrian migrant boy Aylan Kurdi, who died in 2015 while trying to immigrate to Europe. The fourth section examines some limitations of the ‘visual securitization’ theory. The authors conclude that the ‘visual turn’ has led to a certain democratization of securitization practices by opening up new opportunities for the ‘bottom-up securitization’, or ‘people’s securitization’. Thus, it questions the traditional monopoly of political elites on the molding of a security narrative. At the same time, the ‘visual turn’ extends the list of possible reference objects of securitization, which comes to include not only domestic audiences, but also other communities. As a result, ‘visual securitization’ raises a number of new issues. In contrast to a traditional ‘speech act’, an image can be open to various interpretations and as such would make the process of interaction with the audience too complicated and inconsistent. The possibility of incorrect interpretation places increased demands on the communicative context and hinders the use of an image as an independent securitization tool. The authors argue that the key to addressing these issues lies in a more active use of artificial intelligence technologies and social networks.

Neoclassical realism emerged as part of the neorealists’ response to the criticism of their core theoretical provisions, intended to adapt the latter to the challenges of post-bipolar international relations. However, with further elucidation and formalization of the key ideas and premises of neoclassical realism it started to assert itself as an independent research approach, and even more so, as a special, metasynthetic theory. In order to assess the validity of these claims and, in general, to better understand the place of neoclassical realism in the theory of international relations, this paper considers it within the context of the evolutionary logic of the realist paradigm and neorealism, in particular. The first section identifies the origins and main theoretical provisions of neoclassical realism. The second section covers modern theoretical debates on the essence of and prospects for further development of analytical and methodological aspects of this approach. In order to provide a better understanding of the epistemological potential of the neoclassical realism, the third section examines empirical researches carried out within its framework. The author concludes that at the moment neoclassical realism can hardly qualify for the status of an independent theoretical position, let alone a meta-theory. It is more appropriate to consider it as a peculiar form, specific research model within the framework of the (neo)realist paradigm. As such, it allows putting forward verifiable hypotheses based on the analysis of the relationships between the independent, dependent and interfering variables, and also opens up new opportunities for conducting empirical research on a wide range of subject matters. At the same time, there is still a lot of work to be done to overcome the eclecticism inherent to neoclassical realism and to better define its ontological, epistemological and methodological foundations.

A contemporary world order is based on an increasingly complex system of interstate relations, which implies the need to thoroughly consider the international context, even when analyzing bilateral interactions. From this point of view, the concept of a ‘strategic triangle’, developed during the Cold War and applied primarily to analyze the dynamics of relationships between the USSR, the USA and the PRC, appears to have significant epistemological potential. In current conditions, it is of particular interest to use this concept to study the logic of relations in the ‘Russia–India–China’ (RIC) triangle. This research pursues two interrelated goals. On the one hand, it is aimed at identifying specific features of this new ‘strategic triangle’, its inner structure and logic of interactions between its participants. On the other hand, it assesses the applicability of the theoretical models developed during the Cold War to the relations within the framework of the RIC strategic triangle. The author examines the history, general dynamics and contemporary features of interaction within each pair of bilateral relations in this ‘triangle’. The research has confirmed the hypothesis that the relations between Russia, India, and China, indeed, form a specific subsystem of international relations, which can be described as a ‘strategic triangle’. At the same time, unlike the Sino-American-Soviet ‘strategic triangle’, it is the logic of cooperation, rather than rivalry, which generally prevails within the framework of the RIC.

However, the RIC ‘triangle’ can also be described as an inherently inconsistent system. While China and Russia maintain close strategic cooperation in almost all areas, in the case of India and Russia, economic cooperation does not match the achieved level of political contacts, and Sino-Indian relations, despite the generally positive dynamics during the recent years, remain at a low level. All this points to the need  to develop a new theoretical and methodological framework for analyzing trilateral relations between Russia, India and China as a special subsystem of the contemporary world politics, one that will be free from Cold War stereotypes.

In recent years, China has been vigorously strengthening its international authority, consistently building its image as a responsible great power. One of the vivid manifestations of these efforts has been China’s active involvement in peacekeeping activities under the auspices of the United Nations. Currently, among the permanent members of the UN Security Council, China is the largest supplier of contingents for UN peacekeeping operations and the second largest donor of financing for these operations. At the same time, the PRC’s peacekeeping policy faces a number of endogenous and exogenous risks and challenges that remain somewhat understudied. The first section of the paper examines the key stages in the development of the PRC’s approaches to peacekeeping. It is shown that while all other members of the UN Security Council are gradually reducing the number of contingents and cutting funding to UN peacekeeping activities, China, on the contrary, is consistently increasing its of support for UN peacekeeping operations. The second section identifies current trends and prospects for the development of China’s peacekeeping activities. The author emphasizes that China is not only actively engaging into the existing UN peace-keeping mechanisms and initiatives, but also offers its own original conceptual approaches to address the challenges related to peacemaking and peacebuilding. The concept of ‘developmental peace’ proposed by Chinese researchers is of particular interest in this context. At the same time, as shown in the third section, this activity of the PRC faces a number of problems and challenges. The author notes that China’s objective contribution to peacekeeping activities and international recognition of its efforts are actually very asymmetrical. To this should be added the active efforts of Western countries aimed at discrediting the peacekeeping activities of the PRC, manifested in pushing of narratives about the exceptional selfishness of Chinese initiatives and China’s desire to achieve unilateral advantages in the ‘Taiwan issue’ by exploiting peacekeeping agenda. Assessing the prospects for the development of the PRC’s peacekeeping activities in these conditions, the author emphasizes the need to deepen cooperation with various regional organizations; increase the use of public diplomacy tools and improve the legislative framework for peacekeeping in China itself.