Russian Foreign Policy

There may also be darker clouds ahead for the US in Asia. The region that has often been suspicious of Chinese expansionism and the underlying motives and impact of the BRI as well as its territorial claims to the South China Sea and it once welcomed the prospect, in some quarters, of President Obama’s declared pivot back to Asia (something Biden is purportedly trying to realise) that would help to balance out the PRC and offer Asian countries the opportunity to benefit from safe economic exposure to both. The Western response to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine did raise some sympathy for Ukrainians but, as it continued and was ramped up very quickly, Southeast Asians, such as the Burmese living under the heel of the military in Myanmar find the imbalance in Western concern disheartening. Social media and opinion pieces by both those in the West and in Asia have decried the underlying racism that makes Ukrainian lives appear to seem, to the West, more valuable than those of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, where responses are often late, half-hearted, and self-serving. The US in particular has been blamed for moral hypocrisy as well, given its numerous invasions and military strikes in the Middle East in the last two decades and a kind of determined unilateralism where the US is the sole arbiter of global right and wrong. It may be that Putin, like Hitler, will fail miserably in the end. Nevertheless, in the long run, Putin, again like Hitler, will have been responsible for the emergence of a new geopolitical order on a global scale in which the US place in Asia is less welcome than it once was.

Este artigo tem o intuito de analisar as medidas de política externa adotadas pela Rússia nos anos de 2014-2015 que resultaram na invasão da Federação à Crimeia, sob a ótica do Modelo de Hermann, com a seguinte questão norteadora: diante da invasão à Crimeia e quebra da soberania do país, em que medida as ações de política externa da Rússia foram influenciadas pelas mudanças de governo na Ucrânia? Para isto, levou-se em consideração breve contexto histórico da crise ucraniana, bem como as três mudanças de governo em curto prazo e se aplicou o modelo de Hermann, contextualizado com o entendimento conceitual de GuerraHíbrida, uma vez que as estratégias de guerra do governo russo na Crimeia foram de vias convencionais e não convencionais. Como síntese da pesquisa aqui apresentada, produziu-se um quadro demonstrativo da aplicação do Modelo de Hermann nas mudanças dos governos ucranianos e os tipos de guerra observados.

During the first period of Russian dominance over the Volga-Tatar region, from Ivan IV to Catherin II, Tatar Muslims were being treated as an "Alien Creature". However, under Catherine II, Islam was accepted as a more reasonable way of civilizing the Asian savages and atheists rather than orthodox Christianity, and even considered as a mortgage of the political and social organization; In this respect the Russian authorities benefited from the Muslim elites as the mediators of the Russian order in the empire, the reliance on the Tatar Muslim elite was also for the Russian government to implement the Muhammadian Shari’a, and to eradicate the heresy, the atheism, and the expulsion of the apostates.
The successors of Catherine the great did not pursue her enlightening politics, and in the 1860s, the sovereignty of Russia became more imperialistic, and they brought assimilation policies to the Muslims. The ultimate goal of this policy was to establish a Christian intellectual circle among the Tatars to serve the fundamental changes in the religion of other people. The long-term impact to the policy of assimilation was terrible, although the severity of this policy varied in different periods and locations. This policy was exactly among the elites who carried away post-colonial discourse and practically justified the tsarist rule.
Furthermore, in this leading research, it has been attempted to focus on the neglected aspects from the reaction of Tatar Muslim elites to the Russian cultural conquest (1500-1900), the spectra that they belonged to, the reasons for these people to justify or deny Tsarist rule, and at finally, did they succeed in accepting or responding to Tsarist sovereignty as a legitimate government? To this end , efforts have been made to examine its trend with the historical approach and analytical descriptive method.

On January 27th 2015, in the case of Paradiso and Campanelli v. Italy, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decided, by five votes to two, that a child born by surrogacy abroad and those who ordered him enjoy protection of the right to family life even though the child was obtained fraudulently, against payment, without genetic link and after a very short period of cohabitation. The Court concluded that Italy could refuse to recognise the filiation established in Russia, but that taking the child away from the sponsors infringed their right to private and family life.

Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the military alliance is stepping up its defenses against chemical and nuclear weapons as concern mounts that Russia might use such weapons in Ukraine. Will this be a red line for NATO? Use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be a major escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war, and it could prompt a military intervention by NATO in this war. This would mean a real possibility of a war between Russia and NATO. I think that Russia won't use chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in Ukraine for this reason. And such use of weapons of mass destruction would produce a major blowback for Russia. In particular, it would undermine the Russia's goal of a regime change in Ukraine and false justifications by Russia of the invasion by the need to stop development of biological and nuclear weapons by Ukraine. b) Besides Ukraine, should other NATO members be worried as Poland, Slovakia...?

This chapter investigates whether the often misused and misunderstood concept of the buffer state remains significant in the post-Cold War era. With this in mind, we focus on the case of Ukraine and its relations with Russia and the West. We suggest that, as the conditions of cooperation and competition between Russia and the West have been significantly different from those of the past, both of them do not perceive small states between them as buffers. Nudged in between great powers, small states that in the past could have played the role of buffer, have now become objects of the competition between great powers and their integration projects. We conclude that small states lying uncomfortably in-between great powers remain vulnerable to pressures from their more powerful neighbours; their domestic politics and policies and their external relations are invariably influenced by their geography. However, their own decisions at home and abroad still matter.

When we examine the history of Nagorno-Karabakh, we can see that Armenian and Azerbaijani historians have been looking for the truth in the thousand-year history which, in turn, creates a controversial issue. The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region was established in 1923 and had an official status within Azerbaijan. In order to resolve this conflict, after the dissolution of the USSR, solution proposals were presented under the umbrella of the OSCE Minsk Group. In this study, plans based on land swap and international solution proposals are discussed comparatively. In addition, the land swap strategy that will be implemented within the frame of the ceasefire agreement that took place on November 9, 2020 and that will become a topic for discussion in the future will be evaluated in this study.

This case study is excerpted from a forthcoming study to be published through Chatham House, provisionally entitled What Deters Russia. As NATO Allies consider or undertake freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in areas of heightened political and military sensitivity for Russia, there is awareness that this may lead to an assertive response by Russia. A previous instance of FONOPs leading to a potentially dangerous confrontation is worth considering in detail for the lessons it provides on the multiple and complex factors that can lead to miscalculation in these circumstances.

This paper examines Soft's power concept, with a particular focus on Russia's strategy. The sources of Russian new foreign policy are investigated. This work discusses the evolution of Russia's foreign policy during last twenty years, what led Kremlin's analysts investigate and explore the possibility to adopt, in alternative to hard power, the soft power. The article describes Russia's soft power resources from the origin till today, its instruments and institutions. Special attention is given to the education dimension of soft power and its application within Russian foreign policy framework. Аннотация: В этой статье рассматривается концепция мягкой силы, с особым вниманием к стратегии России. Исследуются источники новой российской внешней политики. В этой работе обсуждаются эволюция российской внешней политики за последние двадцать лет и причины, побудившие кремлевских аналитиков исследовать и изучать возможность использования в качестве альтернативы жесткой силе мягкую силу. В статье описываются ресурсы мягкой силы России от истоков до наших дней, ее инструменты и институты. Особое внимание уделяется образовательному измерению мягкой силы и его применению в рамках российской внешней политики. Ключевые слова: мягкая силa-внешняя политика-Россия-жесткая силы-мировой порядок-международная система-международные отношения-международное образование

Since the early 2000s, “soft power” has become one of the most popular analytical tools in International Relations scholarship devoted to analyzing the influence of states in the international arena. Although scholars of Russian foreign policy have also embraced the notion of “soft power”, they have mainly limited the scope of their analysis to Western countries and the former Soviet republics. In contrast, this article focuses on Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, countries whose history of relations with Russia are fundamentally different from both the West and Russia’s “near abroad”. By analyzing the images of Russia and its soft power resources in these countries, this article seeks to create a more comprehensive understanding of the ways contemporary Russia is perceived in the world and its potential tools of influence in Southeast Asia. Drawing on the results of a survey conducted among university students, this article examines the ways young educated elites in the three countries perceive Russia. It also explores the degree of correspondence between these images and the self-image of Russia espoused by its political elites. The results of this study suggest that while overall Russia is perceived as a Great Power, and its role in the world is seen as mostly positive, there are also important dissonances between the two images. Based on discernible differences among the three groups of respondents in the ways they perceive Russia, the article also suggests that historical memory plays an important role in shaping these perceptions.

The central assumption of this essay will be that foreign and domestic political spheres are not hermetic. As Robert Putnam’s logic of two-level games (1988) argues, “domestic politics and international relations are often somehow entangled” (p. 427), and constant interaction between the two spheres determines political conducts within a state. The main goal of foreign policy analysis is therefore to go beyond the realist assumption according to which states are black-boxed, rational units (Mearsheimer, 2001), and seize the domestic sources of international behavior. Our approach nonetheless excludes an extensive definition of the notion of domestic source. If taken extensively, any foreign policy has a domestic source, since foreign policy is the mean of survival of states in international anarchy. A domestic source will therefore be defined as a material or immaterial driver of a state’s foreign policy located within the nation’s paradigm excluding the universal drivers such as protection of its population or wealth. In the case of Russia, it will therefore be contended that the study of the domestic drivers of its foreign policy can be divided in two temporal subdivisions. Long term, heavy variables can in fact be distinguished from medium to short-term or regional factors. While the first section of this essay regroups long term trends whose roots go down into Russia’s history, the second one underlines how medium to short term domestic factors can be analyzed as sources shaping Russia’s foreign policy, both in its essence and its semantics.

During recent years tensions between Russia and Western states have risen, undermining the stability that Europe has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War. The purpose of this research is to study Russia’s behavior and external actions during this time, and determine the driving factors that led its leadership to adopt them. The analysis is made principally through Structural Realism, using in addition the Perception and Misperception Theory to explain state behavior and threat perception. Initially the thesis examines Russia’s geopolitical position and the post-Cold War international system, as well as the alternative strategies of A2/AD and Hybrid Warfare that characterize Russian actions. Then, the post-Cold War Western foreign policy actions in Europe and the Middle East are discussed. The main issues examined are the NATO and EU enlargement to the East, the development of NATO’s Ballistic Missile Defense and Western global interventions after 1990. Emphasis is placed on Russia’s perception of these actions as threatening to its perceived sphere of influence, its Near Abroad, and its initial reaction to this emerging security dilemma. Subsequently, analysis focuses on Russian aggressive actions and external behavior. Beginning with Putin’s ascent to power, Russia recovered from its decline and rebuilt its military, using it as a central tool to promote its foreign policy objectives. This became obvious in the interventions that started with the invasion in Georgia in 2008 and its engagement in Ukraine in 2014. The latest intervention in Syria, in 2015, marked Russia’s first step beyond its Near Abroad, aiming to extend its influence on global scale. The research concludes that the current Russian assertive behavior in its Near Abroad resulted as a reaction to external threats, as Russian leadership perceived the West’s strategic behavior in the post-Cold War period. In order to confront these threats and reclaim Russia’s Great Power status, Moscow chose a hard power approach that led to a confrontation with the West. This ongoing antagonism has a serious impact on the security balance on a regional and global scale.

ABSTRACT This article examines Russia’s use of Reflexive Control, a Soviet-origin technique to control an adversary’s decision-making processes, during the invasion of Ukraine by scrutinizing daily monitoring reports received by Putin’s aide on the policy toward Ukraine, Vladislav Surkov, a possible political-military command. The Kremlin’s moves in political negotiations are closely intertwined with and supported by its military actions. Synchronization between Reflexive Control and combat control becomes more critical and complicated during the combat stage, as the initiator of Reflexive Control simultaneously seeks to maximize its political gains at the ‘peace’ negotiation table, the outcome of which depends not only on the success on the battlefields, but also on the situational awareness of the enemy (in democratic countries, both the leadership and the public) and international third parties. Video abstract Read the transcript Watch the video on Vimeo

The leaked email accounts of Putin’s aide on Ukraine, Vladislav Surkov, are vast primary source collections that shed light on the backstage happenings of the Kremlin’s politics in the Donbas war. Surkov is an excellent dramaturg; he writes scripts, casts actors, analyzes their performance and narratives, runs promotions, and puts the repertoire into motion to achieve intended reactions of the target audience. Methods and resources employed against Ukraine have much in common with political technology that helps the Kremlin to manipulate public opinion as well as election systems using pseudo-experts, technical parties, fake civic organizations and youth movement such as Nashi, and covert media techniques. Moscow tactically promoted the myth of “Novorossiya”—later the circumstances forced Surkov to replace it with “Donbas.” These tactics gave false credibility to “separatists” who would voice Moscow’s objections to any attempts of Ukraine to drift westward, creating an illusion in t...

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, there have been growing concerns that tensions are rising between Russia and Japan over the Kuril Islands. Stretching across 1200 kilometres, or 750 miles, between Hokkaido and the Khamchatka Peninsula, the southern part of the archipelago has been a source of friction between Tokyo and Moscow since the end of the Second World War. So, could we see a conflict between Russia and Japan over the islands?

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Since 1945, Japan has been at odds with the Soviet Union and then Russia over the Kuril Islands. Originally divided between them in 1855 under the Treaty of Shimoda - when Japan gained Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai Islets - the entire chain was ceded to Japan in 1875 in return for south Sakhalin Island, which was regained in 1905 after the Russo-Japanese War. Although the USSR and Japan signed a Neutrality Pact in 1941, as the war in the Far East drew ended in August 1945, Moscow invaded South Sakhalin and the entire the Kuril Islands chain. In 1956, the two countries signed a Peace Declaration. However, their dispute over the Kuriles, prevented them from signing a formal peace treaty. To this day, Russia and Japan have still not signed an agreement due to the Kuril Islands, which are called the 'Northern Territories' by Japan. But while there had been some sign of progress in recent years, especially following talks between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Russia seems to have become more hardline. This has been especially the case since the start of the war in Ukraine.