International Affairs No. 2, 2020 – Table of Contents

Dear Sergey Viktorovich,

Staff members of the International Affairs journal are sending their sincere, heartfelt wishes on your birthday. We are genuinely proud of the fact that for many years (far from the easiest ones in the history of Russia and humankind), the International Affairs Board has been headed by a Russian politician and statesman such as you. Your diplomatic talent, reinforced by your professionalism, will to victory and sometimes …

DEAR FRIENDS,

Let me extend my heartfelt wishes on your professional holiday, Diplomats’ Day. …

COLLEAGUES, FRIENDS,

Today, we are celebrating Diplomats’ Day. First of all, I would like to offer my sincere greetings to all our diplomatic staff and veterans on their professional holiday, the holiday of hard-working people dedicated to their work who sincerely love their Motherland and stand up for our national interests in the international arena. A diplomat is above all a patriot. Their most important qualities are honesty, integrity, reliability, eloquence in writing and speaking, extensive knowledge, and readiness to give their all. Russian diplomacy has a history of several hundred years and is famous for its traditions. At all times, diplomats have served our Fatherland with honor, fulfilling their duty to the end, including in armed combat, if needed, as was the case during World War II and the Great Patriotic War. …

Key words: Russia, Indonesia, 70th anniversary of dipolmatic relations.

THIS YEAR, Russia and Indonesia are celebrating the 70th anniversary of their diplomatic relations. Any significant date is always a good occasion both for summing up what has been achieved so far and for drafting plans for the future. …

Key words: Russia, Vietnam, 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.

THE YEAR 2020 abounds in anniversary dates in the history of Russian-Vietnamese ties. One of the most important ones is the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. On January 30, 1950, the Soviet Union was among the first countries to recognize the young Vietnamese state, thus laying the foundation of years-long friendship and close cooperation between our nations. …

Key words: Vietnam, Russia, 70 years of cooperation, strategic partnership.

SEVENTY YEARS AGO, on January 30, 1950, the Soviet Union officially established diplomatic relations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, becoming one of the first countries in the world to recognize the newly independent state. The USSR thus demonstrated a high degree of solidarity with the Vietnamese people in their struggle for a just cause. The groundwork for these close ties between the two nations was laid during President Ho Chi Minh’s visit to Soviet Russia three decades before that date, in search of ways of freeing Vietnam from the feudal/colonial yoke. Since then, despite the distance between us, we have been close spiritually, and being fervent patriots, we stand shoulder to shoulder in overcoming the innumerable difficulties and challenges, and forging the traditions of special friendship between our nations. …

Key words: Transcaucasus, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Ukrainian conflict.

THE DISINTEGRATION of the Soviet Union has led to a new geopolitical zone appearing on the world map – the so-called post-Soviet space where Russia plays a dominant role even though post-Soviet countries have different development paths, political regimes and economies. Amid the escalating relations between Russia and the West, the pressing problem for Russia right now is to build relations with its immediate neighbors. Therefore, maintaining diplomatic relations with post-Soviet countries is an important geopolitical goal for Russia, since this is a zone of strategic economic and political interests. However, not only Russia is interested in establishing strong diplomatic ties but also former Soviet countries. This is largely because Russia is at the center of the post-Soviet space, with many countries, including EaEU member states, pursuing trade and economic relations via Russia. …

Key words: Russia, EU, Emmanuel Macron, European Project.

WHEN EMMANUEL MACRON met with Vladimir Putin in August 2019 at Fort Bregançon, the French president’s statements about the necessity of creating with Russia “a European space from Lisbon to Vladivostok” caused a brief but resounding stir among the international press. In most EU and NATO countries, the responses were circumspect or critical. As might have been expected, the most negative assessments of these statements came from Great Britain, Poland, the Baltic countries, and (outside the EU and NATO) from Ukraine. Skepticism prevailed in France as well, in particular concerning Macron’s words about Russia being “a very thoroughly European country.” Since the idea of this common space is not a new approach to the region, the mainstream media tried to have the president’s maneuverings seen as a diplomatic ploy primarily aimed at warming relations with Russia and energizing the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. Only a few analysts saw elements of a long-term strategy associated with changes in the world order, especially the rise of China, and the relative but noticeable weakening of Western influence and of its unity in the face of new challengers. …

Key words: WTO, reform, crisis, United States, European Union, Russia.

THE QUESTION OF CHANGE in WTO activities is no longer hypothetical but has taken a practical turn. The United States and the European Union, as well as other WTO members, have already formulated their initial positions on this issue. WTO reform is a current priority for the G20. …

Key words: Iran, Russia, cooperation, Ambassador Mehdi Sanaei.

International Affairs: Today’s guest to the project cosponsored by the International Affairs journal and the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Press and Information Department is Mehdi Sanaei, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Russia. …

Key words: international law, liberal order, civilization.

Cain was told by the Creator in the direct sense of the word: “Thou shalt be groaning and trembling upon the earth…”¹ …

Key words: Ukrainian nationalism, Nazi Germany, territorial acquisitions.

“NO BALANCE in Eastern Europe and, therefore, in entire Europe is possible as long as the Muscovite Empire exists. No new order in possible in an unbalanced Europe. …

Key words: Russian Foreign Ministry, Baltic governorates, Baltic Germans, Germany, Alexander Izvolsky, Dmitry Nikolsky, Wilhelm von Schoen, press bureau, press, newspaper Rossiya.

Alexander Izvolsky and the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Contacts With the Press …

Armen Oganesyan, Editor-in-Chief, International Affairs

I HAVE the pleasure of welcoming you to our jubilee conference in this wonderful, beautiful hall in the Livadia Palace, a building that could tell us a great deal of Russian and world history. Surely there will have to be historical parallels and reminiscences during this conference, although the issues we have on our agenda could not be more up to date. …

Key words: Martens, St. Petersburg State University, international law department, Collection of Treaties, Consular Charter, Hague Peace Conference, Martens Clause.

THE MEMORIAL DATES calendar of 2020 includes the 175th birth anniversary (August 27), and June 19, 2019, was the 110th death anniversary of Fyodor Martens as he has always been known in Russia, or Friedrich Fromhold Martens as was his birth name, a professor at St. Petersburg University and a world-famous diplomat, international law scholar and international arbitration judge. …

Key words: Lev Mendelevich, personal archive, outstanding diplomat, Foreign Policy Archive.

SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 was the birth centenary of Lev Mendelevich, an outstanding Soviet diplomat (1918-1989). There was a series of events at the Russian Foreign Ministry to mark the occasion, including a memorial meeting organized by the Council of Veterans, an article about Mendelevich’s diplomatic activities in the journal International Affairs,¹ and a photo exhibition in the foyer of the ministry’s central building. …

Key words: diplomacy in medieval Rus, Patriarch of Constantinople, Posolsky Prikaz.

IN THE LAST QUARTER of the 16th century, Muscovite Rus was involved in active diplomatic relations in various spheres, its success guaranteed by coordinated and intensive efforts of employees of the Posolsky Prikaz (foreign ministry) set up in 1549. The establishment of the patriarchate in Rus (in 2019, this institution marked its 430th anniversary) was partly due to the hard work of our colleagues who lived in the Late Middle Ages. …

Key words: Russia and Bessarabia, 200th anniversary of Bessarabia’s accession to Russia.

ACROSS THE POST-SOVIET SPACE, political expediency has become the guiding light of the science of history. Each former Soviet republic, today a sovereign state, tends to revise the cultural and scientific heritage of the “fraternal family of Soviet peoples.” The CIS and Baltic countries have already acquired or are writing their national histories. The ruling elites have hoisted the flag of the protection of interests of the titular nation and are tirelessly looking for new or even completely different historical and cultural landmarks related to the fates of autochthonous ethnicities. …

Key words: international crisis, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia.

FOR A LONG TIME, scholars remain interested in the history of the international political crisis of 1938-1941 and its different aspects – the diplomatic efforts of the Great Powers and politics of small East European countries (including the Baltic states). Despite the politicization of the problem, historians of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Russia and some other countries narrowed down the field of possible interpretations of the Soviet-Baltic relationships of 1938-1940. The post-Soviet decades have seen a lot of highly informative studies and documentary publications. …

Key words: IIS, cyberwarfare, information technology revolution.

INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION SECURITY (IIS) in the present-day world has emerged as a priority in analyzing international relations in the context of the global information technology revolution, which has predetermined the formation of the global information space and information society at the international and national levels. Therefore, ensuring IIS and its systemic analysis is highly relevant, since the challenges of the real world are compounded by escalating tensions in the virtual world. The boundary between the virtual and the real world is becoming increasingly porous, which means that cyberwarfare has the potential to transform into a field of conventional warfare. The information space is emerging as the same kind of battlefield as land, the sea, airspace, and outer space. …