International Affairs No. 6, 2019 – Table of Contents

Key words: UN General Assembly, Russia, Iran, arms control.

Question: Sergey Alekseyevich, 10 members of the Russian delegation to the UN General Assembly have not been issued visas. Is that a continuation of the visa war? What action will Russia take in this connection? …

Key words: Russia, China, 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations, bilateral ties.

“At seventy I could follow my heart’s desire without transgressing the norm. ” …

Key words: Afghanistan, Taliban, intra-Afghan dialogue, ISAF, UNAMA, Pakistan.

THE SEIZURE OF POWER in Afghanistan by the Mujahiddin (“warriors of faith”), in 1992, opened a new but certainly not peaceful chapter in the modern history of the country. The new bosses in Kabul, who were linked at one point only by the common interest of overthrowing the pro-communist regime, were now not only unable to consolidate power, but could not get around an almost open split in their leadership. The resulting wobbly system of rotating leadership was bound to be unable to satisfy everyone’s wants. …

Key words: Islam, Africa, Middle East, jihad, re-Islamization, maximalism, minimalism, liminality, tribalism.

THE MEMORY of the events of the 1990s in Egypt, one of the biggest African (or, rather, Afro-Asian) states, is very much alive. Having accepted “moderate Islamists,” the legal wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian leaders were consistently fighting the “Islamic terrorist underground,” viz. the same Muslim Brotherhood that preached radical ideas and was conspiring against the state. It was at that time that Muslim Brotherhood became an umbrella term for very different groups and cells (there were over 100 of them within the Egyptian borders). Not united organizationally, they were tied together by a widened and modernized ideology of jihad dating back to the Middle Ages. …

Key words: Pan-Africanism, decolonization, political regionalism, Afro-pessimism, African Renaissance, African Union, economic integration, regional associations, defensive regionalism.

THE SIGNIFICANT NUMBER of problems that confront the African states today, such as border conflicts, clan politics, the difficult choice of foreign policies, and the struggle for recognition on the international arena, is rooted in the continent’s colonial past. …

Key words: global risks, sustainable development platform, national idea, diplomatic discourse.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT is a theme throughout history. Today, it has acquired a new meaning, a new scope and a new content: the cardinal shifts in world economy, world society and world politics have made realization of the sustainable development priorities an imperative. …

Key words: terrorism, state terrorism, reign of terror, international security law.

THE TERM “state terrorism,” which was common in public discourse in the latter half of the 1980s, is coming back into use. Just as in those years, today it is used for specific propagandist ends, including accusations against our country. For example, former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko branded ex-State Duma deputy Denis Voronenkov’s murder in Kiev as “an act of state terrorism by Russia.”¹ Over the past few years, Ukrainian diplomats and politicians have been condemning Russian policies of “state terrorism” in Crimea, the Donetsk People’s Republic, and the Lugansk People’s Republic. They have been repeating these accusations as a mantra. Today’s increasing use of the term “state terrorism” brings back questions that were topical three decades ago: Can a state be a source of terrorism? Is state terrorism a legal concept or just a verbal trick to manipulate public opinion? Finally, can governments be prosecuted if they are involved in terrorism – and if so, how? …

Key words: OPEC, OPEC+, oil, shale gas, Arctic LNG.

Question: Yury Konstantinovich, not so long ago a Charter of Cooperation between OPEC+ members was signed. Will this help stabilize the oil market? …

Key words: Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), United Nations, Nornickel company, public-private partnership (PPP).

IN JUNE 2019, the Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) company released its annual report for 2018 on sustainable development. The report, entitled The New Nornickel: Strategy in Action,¹ cited the company’s principal non-commercial statistics and described key projects. The main achievements were environmental protection, occupational health, industrial safety, and production modernization and efficiency measures. The League of American Communications Professionals (LACP) put the report among the top 100 winners of its 2018 Vision Awards Annual Report Competition, a world contest of public non-financial reports.² …

Key words: Yemen, Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Arab League.

THE RECENT ATTACKS at Saudi tankers, blasts at oil pipelines and Saudi air strikes at Sana’a where Russian citizens were wounded¹ forced many observers again to pay attention to Yemen. The talk about the war swept under the carpet as an internal conflict in a country on the Arabian Peninsula has been revived. Involvement of the region’s leading states in the conflict and its catastrophic repercussions call for deeper analysis. …

Key words: Cross-Year, Vietnam, Russia.

VIETNAMESE PRIME MINISTER Nguyen Xuan Phuc paid an official visit to Russia late in May of this year during which he and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev attended the opening ceremony for the Vietnamese-Russian Cross-Year – the Vietnam Year in Russia and the Russia Year in Vietnam. The Cross-Year, to take place from the second quarter of 2019 to 2020, will be a large-scale project comprising more than 200 events all of which will be significant and symbolic and will give fresh impetus to the strengthening and diversification of ties between the two countries. …

Key words: withdrawal of Russian troops from Latvia, Russia.

ON AUGUST 31, 1994, Russia finished withdrawing troops from Latvia as the 25th Brigade of the Northwestern Group of Forces, which was deployed near Riga, left the Baltic country. This eliminated the last reminder of relations between Latvia and Russia as parts of the same state. That day was a landmark, the starting point of a new form of coexistence between them. …

Key words: Eurasian Information and Analytical Consortium (EIAK), First Eurasian Analytical Forum, Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

THE VOCABULARY of the media increasingly often includes the phrase “artificial intelligence” (“AI”). Dictionaries explain AI as an electronic technology designed to perform creative functions that until now have been a human prerogative. This increasingly sophisticated technology has produced machines that can play chess, write poetry, compose music, and answer questions. …

Key words: Great Britain, Brexit, referendum, Brexiteers, Bremainers.

The current political class is unable to govern the state. …

Key words: Britain, European Union, Brexit, European Parliament elections, United States, military research.

AS SOON AS Brexit negotiations started, 27 member states of the European Union closed ranks to make Britain’s departure from the EU as difficult as possible and stop other members from leaving the bloc. The EU was acting as a single entity in the talks – for example, the British prime minister couldn’t hold one-to-one meetings with leaders of individual EU countries to drum up support for the British position. …

Key words: U.S., Central Asia, humanitarian presence.

THE U.S. HUMANITARIAN PRESENCE in Central Asia (CA) is tied to the region’s importance to the U.S.’s foreign policy and economic objectives. The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy refers to the region as “Central and South Asia,” which presents “some of the most complicated security challenges and opportunities” for the U.S. The latter would like to see “Central Asian states that are resilient against domination by rival powers, are resistant to becoming jihadist safe havens, and prioritize reforms.” To that end, the U.S. “will encourage the economic integration of Central and South Asia.”¹ Washington also considers Afghanistan, Pakistan and India part of South Asia. …

Key words: soft power, Joseph Nye, international relations, interdependency.

IN THE STUDY of soft power, much attention is given to the works of the concept’s founder, Joseph Nye Jr. He formulated its basic tenets and developed its conceptual framework, thereby laying the theoretical foundations of the policy of soft power, both in purely academic as well as in practical terms. …

Key words: Yevgeny Primakov, Middle East, Arab-Israeli conflict.

YEVGENY PRIMAKOV, a scholar, journalist and politician, left a vast intellectual legacy of books, articles and texts of his speeches at big international forums. …

Key words: Yevgeny Primakov, personality, leader, politician, diplomat, scholar.

I REMEMBER too many politicians who surfaced in the fast whirlpool of passions and, having shone for a moment, were engulfed by it leaving behind short-lived memory, vague emotions, “scandals, intrigues and investigations,” and a dull reference in Wikipedia. The late Soviet and the still very short history of post-Soviet Russia abound in mediocrities. They disappear without a trace, filling archives with unnecessary documents and useless resolutions. Their modest (not to say negligible) political legacy can interest only a very narrow circle of historians, journalists and other researchers of different levels of professionalism, moral and ethical consistency and adequacy. …

Problems of Consolidation in Russian Immigrant Communities Abroad: The History of Russian Emigration from China to the U.S., 1920s-1950s

Key words: Russian emigration, Russian émigrés, Russian immigrants, Russians in China, Russians in the United States, refugees, displaced persons, Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), fellow countrymen, fellow countrywomen. …

Key words: diplomatic relations between the USSR and the PRC, Ambassador Wang Jiaxiang, presentation of credentials, “Derozhinskaya mansion,” 13 Kropotkinsky Lane.

ON OCTOBER 2, 1949, the day after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, Sergey Tikhvinsky, the USSR Consul General in Beijing, informed Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai that the Soviet Union would recognize the Central People’s Government of China. Thus, diplomatic relations were established between the Soviet Union and the young republic, the 70th anniversary of which we celebrate this year. …

Key words: Soviet-German relations, Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union of August 23, 1939, specialized files of the Politburo, People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Soviet Foreign Ministry.

THE ARCHIVE of the President of the Russian Federation, the Russian Historical Society, and the German Historical Institute in Moscow (DHI) have marked the 80th anniversary of the Soviet-German Treaty of Nonaggression of August 23, 1939, by publishing a collection of documents from the Russian president’s archive entitled USSR-Germany: 1932-1941.¹ Is this book different from earlier publications of Soviet documents about Soviet-German relations in that period? …

Key words: world politics, international relations, political processes and technologies, geopolitics, national security.

CONCEPTUAL INTERPRETATION of the experience accumulated in the course of social and political development of mankind have acquired special importance in political science, theory and practice of international relations and diplomacy, yet its analysis, systematization and classification are a far from easy task. …

Key words: Ainu, Iturup and Hokkaido islands, Japan, Russian Empire.

THE HISTORY of the Russian Far East begins with the geographic discoveries of great Russian travelers V. Bering, M. Shpanberg, S. Krasheninnikov, Ye. Putyatin, G. Nevelskoy, and many other pioneers who made Russia a great Pacific power. The ethnographic pages of this history are equally interesting or even fascinating. The main role in the discoveries and studies about the peoples and nationalities of the Far Eastern regions of Russia and preservation of their rich cultural heritage belongs to Russian travelers and ethnographers. The White Book of the Ainu People by a collective of authors from Sakhalin recently published by Nauka Publishers is one of the confirmations of the above.* …

Key words: Russian state, books about war veterans who became diplomats, defenders of the country.

THE RUSSIANS have a better historical memory than many other nations. Russians are often more honest and responsible than others in assessing their nation’s past. Of course, we have our dropouts asserting what they claim to be indisputable truths, but the country rejects them totally. There exist sacred things. Due to these things, the national code remains unchanged, and they ensure the continuity of goals pursued by the generations of creators of the Russian state. …

Key words: Caspian Sea, Caspian region.

THE MOSCOW Witte University Press published a four-volume monograph “The Caspian Region,”* a comprehensive discussion of the problems of the Caspian Sea. …