In February 2024, at the Center for Socio-Political History (a branch of the State Public Historical Library of Russia) The international conference "New facets of current problems of modern history" was held. A high bar for scientific discussion was set by the conceptual report of V.V.Zhuravlev, PhD, Professor, laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology. The researcher's vision of the problems of "metamorphoses of Russian modernization", the causes of arrhythmia of social processes, the role and place of reforms and revolutions in it, etc., is of interest to a wide range of readers. Responsible for the publication of L.N.Lazareva.

The article examines the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet ideological campaigns in 1945-1953. The differences between the church’s approach towards the ideological campaigns in domestic and foreign policy are being identified. It is made a conclusion that in domestic dimension the Russian Orthodox Church participates in mobilization campaigns, while in foreign dimension it was involved both in mobilization and repressive campaigns. The author analyzes the distinctions between the Orthodox and the Soviet lines in such issues, as the construction of communism, the concept of the Soviet patriotism, Stalin’s cult of personality, the antagonization of West and the struggle against colonialism.

The purpose of this article is to define the ideological and civilizational platform of the confrontation between the West and Russia in the Ukrainian conflict, to study the specifics of the emergence of the ideology of “Ukrainianism”, to analyze the political and economic motivation of the West in the continuation of the conflict. The article details the systemic errors of Russian policy towards Ukraine. The task is also set to highlight the state and church aspects of the confrontation in Ukraine.

The article examines the papers of the Orthodox periodicals devoted to the Suez crisis. The Russian Orthodox Church adhered to the Soviet position, but its line was not identical to the state course. As a result of comparing the state and church approaches towards the Suez crisis, the differences between them are being identified. It is made a conclusion that in 1956–1957 the Russian Orthodox Church sought to maintain dialogue with both the Patriarchates of Alexandria and Jerusalem, and also neglected the US contribution to the settlement of the conflict.

The article reviews the political development of the Chechen Republic while A.-Kh. A. Kadyrov was in power. The author analyzes the internal political situation in the republic, the process of forming state authorities, the relationship between the military and civilian authorities in Chechnya. The political process in Chechnya took place in extremely difficult conditions due to the acute socio-economic crisis and the ongoing armed confrontation between the federal center and the separatists. A.-X. Kadyrov pursued a course towards building constructive relations with the federal center. A key event was the referendum in March 2003, which consolidated Chechnya's status as a subject of Russia and the presidential elections in October 2003. The death of the Chechen president in May 2004 was a resonant event, but could not change the vector of political development of the republic.

In august, 2020 it was held the Belarus presidential election, which resulted in the aggravation of relations between Minsk and Brussels. The article reviews the international consequences of the election in Belarus, as well as its impact on the bilateral Russia-Belarus relations. The role of mass media in the hybrid conflict between Belarus and the West are specified. The author touches upon the sanctions with noting that imposing restric tions against Minsk has accelerated the Union State building. It is drawn a conclusion that A.Lukashenko’s room for political manoeuvre has diminished, that is why Moscow is able to realize its strategic plans.

The article is devoted to the study of the allied-partner relations of the USA and the countries of Western Europe during the Caribbean (in the terminology of representatives of a number of historical schools - the Cuban) crisis. The involvement of new sources made it possible to prove that since the summer of 1962 the West German secret services were aware of the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba and warned the government of the Federal Republic of Germany about the impending aggravation of relations between the superpowers. In addition, the author analyzed the features of support for the Americans from the UK and France. The research novelty of the article is also due to the material, which examines the struggle of Switzerland for the minimum possible support for Washington.

The article reviews the European Union members’ positions on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution in 2020-2021. The EU’s commitment to the dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan under the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group is considered as a cornerstone of the European policy in the region. The factors foreclosing an opportunity to develop a common European approach towards the conflict are analyzed. It is concluded that the consensus can not be achieved due to the fact that pro-Armenian and pro-Azerbaijani lobby groups resort to such leverages as diaspora activities or drawing attention to the bilateral dialogue with one of the Caucasian republics. The significance of the Turkish factor for the Nagorno-Karabakh problem is emphasized. Despite the fact that today the EU treats the question as marginal, the author notes that the European involvement in the post-conflict regulation on the South Caucasus may be viewed as an opportunity to maintain the EU’s political influence in the region.

This article examines the milestones in the consolidation of the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the interaction between the United States and the islamist organisation. The paper analyses key aspects of Washington's policy towards Cairo during the Arab Spring and after Hosni Mubarak's ouster. The authors consider the specifics of Egypt's domestic politics under Mohamed Morsi and American strategy. The article concludes pragmatic nature of Washington's actual cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The article examines the key stages of developments in Egypt after the revolution of 2011 and after the military coup of 2013. It analyses the steps taken by M. Morsi's government, which led to a new wave of destabilisation in the country and the subsequent military coupled by A. F. al-Sisi. The authors examine US approaches to Cairo against the backdrop of the revolutionary events in the country, taking into account Egypt's geopolitical and strategic importance in the Middle East and B. Obama's officially declared commitment to democratic values.

Russia-West relations, including Germany as one the country’s closest counterparties, are of great scientific interest. The article focuses on the evolution of Russia’s perception in German doctrinal documents and in A. Merkel’s speeches. Germany-Russia ties are unstable, encompassing both positive and negative connotations. The task to assess Russia’s image in German official sources is relevant. The methodology includes quantitative and qualitative methods. Content-analysis and mediametric analysis were used to assess Germany’s “aggressiveness index” towards Russia. Comparison method was chosen to compare the 2006 and 2016 German White Papers, as well as to trace the evolution of the Chancellor’s speeches. In the conclusion the outcomes on the dependence of Russia’s image in the official strategies of Germany and its leader’s speeches on the situation on the global arena are presented.

This article examines the underlying causes of the emergence of the Kurdish conflict in Iraq. It analyzes the key ethnic, social, political, and economic causes that have led to growing tensions between Iraq's Kurdish population and the central government in Baghdad. The article explores the main stages of the formation of the Kurdish movement led by the Barzani clan, as well as the reasons for divergences between Barzani and Talabani. The conclusion is drawn that the Kurdish movement in Iraq was the result of growing internal contradictions at the root of Iraqi statehood.

The article discusses key events in the development of the Kurdish movement during Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. It analyzes the underlying reasons for the exacerbation of relations between Baghdad and the Kurdish population. With the complication of Iraq's geopolitical regional and international situation and the deterioration of the internal political situation in the country, the Kurdish question has naturally worsened again. The article also discusses the background of the creation of the Kurdish Autonomous Region (KAR) and the implications for the Kurdish movement in Iraq.

The article discusses key developments in Iraq since the 2003 U.S. military operation. It analyzes the main contradictions between ethnic and confessional groups in the country, as well as the role of the Kurdish population in the formation of the new Iraq. It examines the steps of Kurdish leaders and their position in the face of the occupation of Iraq, Washington's interaction with the Kurds and Turkey's role in Iraqi Kurdistan. The author concludes the further destabilization of the situation in Iraq, as well as the prospects of the Kurdish Autonomous Region (KAR).

This article discusses the underlying reasons for the start of the U.S. military operation in Iraq in 2003. It analyzes the key ideological, energy, economic, and political aspects that led the Bush Jr. administration to decide to invade the Iraqi state. The authors examine the influence of neoconservative figures, the role of oil, and the official motives of the White House. The article concludes the discrepancy between the declared American reasons for overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime and the most likely drivers of the military operation.

The author traces the intricate role of the United States diplomacy and a contingent of US Army within the context of many cataclysmic event of the Bolshevik revolution across Siberic and the far Eastern provinces of Russia. President Wilson initial policy of nonintervention which he declared on the eve of Civil war transformed into the imperia list design of different military cliques (including Japan) further confused the question of American search for “Russian dilemma”.

The article reviews the fundamental causes of social tension in Cuba, which led to the revolution. The objective prerequisites and motives for formation of the movement led by Fidel Castro are analyzed. The features of development of domestic and foreign policy in revolutionary events in Cuba are being investigated. It is concluded that the Cuban Revolution became an impulse to the change of the situation in international relations in Latin America in the context of the bipolar confrontation of the Cold War. At the same time Castro’s movement laid the foundation for the synthesis of new ideological platforms for Latin American peoples.

The article is devoted to the past, present day and future of the Northern Sea Route development and its role in the Arctic policy of Russia. The author discovers the most significant landmarks in the exploration of this maritime artery, analyses the dynamics of its development in Post-Soviet period and, in particular, international shipping and transit via the Northern Sea Route, characterizes the contemporary situation, processes, problems, challenges and risks. The paper evaluates the perspectives of the Northern Sea Route development, its significance for the further exploration of the Russian Arctic, national and international shipping, its place in the Arctic policy of Russia.

The author proceeds from the fact that from the first days of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, the Woodrow Wilson administration, in various ways, under the guise of ostentatious goodwill, sought to take a leading role among those who offered Russia “help and assistance”. The US diplomatic services launched intensive reconnaissance and sabotage operations, spreading their influence and agents in the hottest spots of the country. These actions were combined with US armed intervention in Soviet Russia, were supported by local counterrevolution, and developed taking into account the presence of the Japanese military contingent in Siberia and the Far East, as well as Czechoslovak units from among former prisoners of war. As a result, by 1919 the United States was close to establishing something similar to the occupation regime in a number of places free of the “Reds” and their supporters.

The main problems of the renewal of the railway communication between Armenia and Turkey are considered. The role of Russia as the initiator of the renewal of communication between the countries in 2008-2009 was revealed. In this regard, the peculiarities of the development of the project of the creation of the international transportation and logistics center (ILC) "Akhuryan" on the Armenian-Turkish border are analyzed. Based on the study of archival materials, the historical prerequisites of the project are revealed. Particular attention is paid to the problems of the functioning of the Russian railways in Armenia due to the limited integration opportunities. The main technical, economic and geopolitical problems of the ILC project are identified.

The article examines Germany’s water policy in the Central Asian region. The reasons for Germany's special interest in this region are highlighted, as well as the peculiarities of the German approach to the problem of improving the efficiency of water resources management. Given the important geostrategic position of Central Asia modern Germany actively promoted the development and deepening of the «enhanced political dialogue» with the countries of the region, initiated the adoption of the Strategy for Central Asia for the period 2007–2013. Within the framework of that Strategy Germany launched Water Initiative for the region. The implementation of the Water Initiative demonstrates Germany’s serious long-term intentions in the Central Asian direction, specifically in the water sector, as well as Germany’s desire to make full use of the EU’s resources and «brand» in order to strengthen its own positions in the region.

The desintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 demonstrated the instability of an ideological state system. Globalization of economic development outsourced some western industries to China, India and other countries with cheap labor. The transformation of Russian economy from socialist to capitalist system by "shock therapy" resulted in sharp decline of living standards. In 1998 Eugeny Primakov did return Russian policy to patriotic values. The sharp rise of oil and gas prices since 2001 did help to restore the growth of Russian economy. The attempt of Ukraine to join EU and to restrict the use of Russian language failed and resulted in loss of Crimea and Donbass. Belarus and Kazakhstan integrated their economies with Russia by creating the Eurasian Economic Union.

The last four years very different shocks fall on the integrated part of Europe persistently. Accidents in Europe’s relations with the USA have been added to these troubles recently. Combination of Brexit, migrant invasion, change of style America demonstrates in its communication with its allies as well as the prospects of the Ukrainian statehood implosion increasingly disturb the EU stability. Bewilderment of framework of a part of European countries’ overstressed association presents an unpredictable menace to security of the whole continent. The hollowing-out of relations and ties with Russia undertaken by the EU under joint American–German pressure enhances the progressing general crisis of the EU. Possibility to ensure a positive outcome of the present crises series in Europe depends on how soon the European politics will realize the vital necessity to restore reasonable basics of Europe-Russia interrelationship.

The article deals with the condition of the global economy, problems in financial and investment spheres. Concentration of capital that precludes a serious competition is observed. Many factors bear witness of the global economy restructuring. The increasing economic inequality is one more problem of the global economy that is acquiring greater acuteness. The author devotes a considerable attention to American President D.Trump’s economic program, considers all “pro” and “contra” for realization of Trump’s economic program. Nowadays Europe is in a deep economic and political confusion. Three main blows to the European prosperity and unity are Britain’s exit from EU, crisis created by Moslem migrants and unexpected Trump’s victory. The EU economy is far from being successful. As in the USA, in Europe programs of quantitative restrictions pursued by the European Central Bank in form of bailout of bonded debts of companies and problem-plagued countries do not produced considerable economic growth. China’s chances to gain the global leadership are very high. In spite of numerous problems, there are no signs that economic and financial might of China will crumble. Integration projects initiated by China will meet resistance of the USA. All these factors portend long and complicated years of economic, social, political and military-strategic instability for the world.

The authors consider evolution of the “refugees” concept and of the international system of displaced persons’ rights protection on the basis of broad massive of historical facts and theoretical material. Making of regime for refugees and of respective branch of international law is connected with the Russian émigré community of the 1920s and 1930s. Causes of institutions’ transformation from the League of Nations High Commissioner for refugees to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for refugees and expansion of their authorities as well as of criteria for refugee status receiving are shown. Data on the present day status of refugee issue are adduced.

In article the author analyzes the historical, political, economic and military-strategic aspects of the Russian approach toward the Arctic region, shows interaction of various factors that shape the Russian policy in the Arctic, highlights its goals and motivations, and attempts to answer a question whether Russia's actions in the Arctic region are of offensive or defensive character. The general idea of this article is to emphasize the historical role of the North in the process of formation of the Russian nation and the unique Orthodox civilization. The author evaluates the security motivations of Russia both in the regional and global context, draws attention to the fact that Moscow's efforts to develop an up-to date security infrastructure in the Russian North surpass plans aimed at economic development of the region. This creates a so-called effect of militarization of the Arctic. The author’s idea is to highlight internal and external limitations of the Russian economic policy in the region, for example the regime of economic sanctions imposed against Russia that affected the implementation of joint projects of Russian and Western companies. The author’s research method is based upon the comparative and analytical approach.

The author focuses on the profound impact the turbulent XXth century had on the destinies of the Caucasus people. In some cases he also tries to cautiously approach the age-old question “what if” when it comes to nowadays developments in the South Caucasus, the former part of the Soviet Union. Whatever the answer, any scholar could feel free to ponder over the future of the Eurasian space in terms of either optimistic or pessimistic scenarios.

The irrefragable answer to questions regarding history of the last third of the 20th century will hardly be possible until all archives will be open. However, it is impossible to wait for that moment passively: in the rapidly changing world exact reference points for building of balanced relations of partners in Europe and all over the world are needed. The negative experience is useful, for people learn from mistakes (at least, theoretically). The human memory is short, selective and unreliable. The notes made in diaries immediately after events are more close to the truth. The evidences that reveal from within the original alignment of forces affecting destiny of people, countries and continents are the most valuable. The diary records related to the eve of the German Democratic Republic’s frontiers opening in November of 1989 are offered in the article.

Whether the Cold War between two superpowers and their respective allies was begun more or less as a replay of the closing campaigns of the World War II because of a massive Soviet invasion in the most of Western Europe or its birth we could see even before the advent of atomic weapons so powerfully demonstrated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The author demonstrates his understanding of the links between science (particularly nuclear physics), war and politics displayed at the very beginning of the Second World War. Based on recently unknown files in the former Soviet Union and the United States the fascinating history discloses how and why the Cold War between two superpowers gave many signs to be born during their hostilities against the common enemy as a result of a deep conflict of mentalities and the U.S. belief in a secure world if no nation after the WWII (except the USA) possessed nuclear weapons.

The internal crisis in the German Democratic Republic was ripening for a long time, but the situation could not be defined as desperate. The Socialist United Party of Germany leadership and the government of the GDR had at their disposal rather powerful levers that allowed regulating the course of events. At the same time lack of a program of actions in the period upon resignation of Erich Honecker had disastrous consequences. Attempts to develop a new concept in a hurry and then to accommodate it with Moscow led to inadmissible waste of time. External and domestic forces that sought not to reform the GDR but to abolish it took advantage of that waste of time. Uncertainty of the middle-level party management in respect of their actions by the leaders of the Soviet perestroika had the additional destructive impact on the situation in the GDR. The toll for the GDR rang out at the moment when the confusion and lack of coordination in the highest echelons of power led to forced abolition of control over the line of demarcation between the capital of the GDR and West Berlin. It was precisely the moment when the countdown to the end of the GDR began.

After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the U.S. – Soviet relations had reached one of their lowest points. The conduct of relationship in the contest of the nuclear weapons competition made most people to accept nuclear weapons as part of the natural order. For them the distant dangers of nuclear war became physical reality. In this climate the idea of thermonuclear weapons born in the USA transformed in military psychology into concept of nuclear deterrence. However the threat of nuclear destruction has caused the world wide movement that resists the temptation to commit mass murder which unconditionally could be called a suicide. The nuclear scientists with rear exception are convinced that the chances of developing an effective shield from the nuclear weapon are extremely remote. That is one of the main useful lessons from Cold War history.

This article, based on the analysis of declassified documents from Russian archives, is devoted to consideration of a dual influence of the beginning of the Vietnamese War on the further development of the Partisans for Peace Movement. On the one hand, it found its expression in strengthening of the splitting activities of the Chinese representatives within this Movement that began in the end of the 1950s. On the other hand, the widespread protest’s movement against US aggression in Vietnam had stimulated the search by the Partisans for Peace Movement more close cooperation with other anti-war movements and organizations of the world peaceful forces, in spite of the existing between them the ideological and political contradictions, which were typical for the Cold War era.

The author analyzes perspectives of the Russian-Chinese strategic alliance formation in the Arctic, assesses merits and deficiencies of such alliance. The reason for analysis were the Western sanctions against Russia since these measures may call into question implementation of joint Arctic projects and impair the general political situation in the region.

According to Kausewitz, «war is the continuation of politics by other means», by means of armed struggle. A state’s capacity to implement its war-time policy principles and ends with military ways and means depends on correct definition of a state’s war-time policy. The World War II is replete with illustrations that inadequately, poorly formulated, permeated with reactionary ideology geopolitics had a negative bearing of achievement of specific goals by a state military machine. The author discloses contradictions between policies and strategies of the USSR’s allies in anti-Nazi coalition and anti-Japan coalition in the Pacific war. The author demonstrates how these contradictions impeded war efforts of Western allies and led Japan to military and political downfall in the world war.

The World War II is replete with examples when inadequately stated, permeated with class ideology geopolitics brought to bear negative influence on achievement of its specific goals by means of military strategy. The second part of the article exposes contradictions between policies and strategies of the Western Allies in the anti-Fascist coalition during the Pacific war. The most dramatic manifestation of these contradictions came at the final stage of the WWII when the Western Allies proved to be unable to complete defeat of Japan in short terms and without unacceptable losses. All these conditions could be fulfilled only due to the USSR entry into war. Despite willingness to limit growth of authority and influence of the USSR on the post-war world balance of forces the Western Allies had to ask the USSR to join the war on the Far East due to the immense experience of land operations the USSR acquired in Europe.

Condition of Russian-German cooperation plays defining role in formation of international atmosphere in Europe. That was true for the first post-war years and remains to be true nowadays. In conditions when project of the Big Europe that involves the Russian Federation in transcontinental cooperation is not yet realized well-being of all European countries directly depends on character of relations between Moscow and Berlin that, in fact, is the capital of the European Union. Growing threat of terrorism only accentuates this connection. Upon terrorist attack in Paris France in cooperation with Russia has formed the basis of a wide international antiterrorist coalition. The principal question is: when the Federal Republic of Germany will join the coalition. Respective decisions seem to be made but the first and greatest difficulty consists of the fact that so far Berlin was geared exclusively to Washington and the USA does not hurry with taking part in ISIS routing.

The development of atom weaponry undertaken by the USA in secret from the USSR at the final stage of the World War II led the former anti-Nazi allies along the path of mutual hatred and brought them to the Cold War and nuclear arms race that put the world in the historical nuclear stalemate that was fraught with the real danger of annihilation of life all over the Earth.

The article deals with the burning issues of terrorism and Islamic extremism which are the main threat for the whole humanity today. This danger causes the growing alarm in the world society and that’s why needs thorough analyses of their reasons. That’s why in the article the author thoroughly investigates the growth of terrorist threats, their reasons and why the terrorism and Islamic extremism are especially dangerous. In this context considered the problems connected with the adopting of the decisions by the different international organizations on common struggle with terrorism. Using system and holistic analyses the author who was the ambassador at large and the director of the Middle East department in the USSR Foreign Ministry researchts the possible ways and methods of struggle with terrorism.

The basic problems of Russia’s presence in the South Caucasus through historical and retrospective analysis are identified. The geopolitical component of Russia’s foreign policy toward the region since the ХVII century was shown. The configuration of the main political forces in the South Caucasus was analyzed, Russian nowadays influence in the political and economic processes in the region was estimated. The basic geographic, geo-economic and other benefits of the South Caucasus were shown. In particular the transit potential of the region was assessed. Weaknesses of Russian geopolitics in the South Caucasus direction were identified, some recommendations were made.

The article focuses on peculiarities of present-day positions of CIS countries and Georgia in the geoeconomic pattern of the world. An explanation for causes of some significant differences between results of international economic comparisons (including the latest ones) is given. Data which characterize multivariant estimates of the levels of economic development of various countries are provided. Particular attention is drawn to the values of per capita GDP of Russia, Central Asian and South Caucasian states, provided by such international organizations as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Center for International Comparisons at the University of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The authors emphasize the fact the differences between the estimates of per capita GDP (and, consequently, between the levels of economic development) of some countries reach 30−50−70%, and in some cases even two or more times. Based on the totals of international comparisons, the authors show how the balance between economic development of Russia and the United States (as well as between Russia and the world’s per capita GDP average) changed from the beginning of XX century to early 2000's.

The middle and the second half of last century of Second Millennium were noted for unprecedented acuteness of comprehensive confrontation of two extremely hostile to each other social systems. This phenomenon, called «cold» war, also has a big impact on people’s fates now, in Third Millennium. Important thing is that it didn’t led to a «hot» war. Nevertheless it has repeatedly drive the ideologically parted society into a border of «hot» war by the impermissibility of using military expenses on the development needs. «Cold» war can be compared with «hot» World Wars I and II by the influence on people’s fates, heavy human casualties and the damage to the environment. The background of such a way of society life since World War II should be founded in quite impartial events, in actual of world war, especially its final stage, and in its conclusions.

The middle and the second half of last century of Second Millennium were noted for unprecedented acuteness of comprehensive confrontation of two extremely hostile to each other social systems. This phenomenon, called «cold» war, also has a big impact on people’s fates now, in Third Millennium. The background of such a way of society life since World War II should be founded in quite impartial events, in actual of world war, especially its final stage, and in its conclusions. Is the international society in ability to change the paradigm of international relations in a way of refusing «hot» and «cold» war thinking?

Twenty years ago the USSR which used to be a genuine great power (an not only in military respect) found itself at the crossroad. Premonitions of fundamental changes prevailed in the society. The Soviet diplomats were not the exclusion. The party and government leadership headed by Gorbachev exhausted the limit of the people’s trust. The authority pf the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and its President Boris Eltsyn was gaining momentum rapidly. In addition, an image of a democrat and a protector of the weak was skillfully and successfully modeled for Eltsyn. Among the ordinary citizens and diplomats there was a growing expectation that it was precisely the Russian politicians who would ensure a fresh start of the nation being and attain a more equitable organization of the society. Everybody would like to believe that in the prospect there was not the state’s disintegration but the renewal of the state’s image. Domestic concerns and anxieties somehow brought an oblivion of the necessity to care about friends in the countries of the Socialist community that in good order and consolidated manner went over to the camp of new «winners». The «jaunty» 1990s that brought Russia on the verge of collapse were about to start.

The rapid growth of economy and population has made the issue of sustained water supply extremely urgent for India. Three main regional water routes — the Brahmaputra, the Indus and the Ganges — originate on the Tibetan Plateau controlled by China. The advantageous geographic position in the riverhead enables China not to reckon with India’s strategic interests and build a system of hydro-electric power stations on the Brahmaputra and divert a part of the river’s flow to its inland. China’s selfish water policy and its efforts to use water scarcity issue as a political leverage has seriously strained relations with India. Currently the frictions between the two regional powers have evolved into a full-scale rivalry for strategic water resources, making all basin states split into two competing camps.

The establishment of young republics in Versailles system of international relations was accompanied by the formation of national armies under the leadership of the French general staff'. In the eastern policy of Pilsudsky the anti-soviet military forces could be allies. After their internment they were placed in Polish camp. Amnestied refugees were under the tutelage of soviet and emigrant structures

The paper is devoted to the eastern dimension of Poland’s foreign policy. The theoretical basis of Poland’s foreign policy is the issue of main concern. Polish role in the expansion of Euro-Atlantic institutions is revised when the author examines the historical and theoretical roots of current Polish geopolitical doctrine. The different forms of Jagellonian paradigm in Polish geopolitical thought are studied to explain their manifestation in Poland eastern policy after the 1989. Their origins, theoretical explications and forms of manifestation are described and analyzed. The article reveals their influence on the development of Atlanticist geopolitical vector in modern Poland, describes and explains its eastern policy.

The present article is devoted to a current state of relations between Russia and the Baltic States. The author considers various aspects of these relations — political, economic, strategic and humanitarian. The goal of the author is to analyze the basic ‘problem knots' of these relations, to make recommendations concerning the need of a ‘reset' of these relations. The main problem of the Russian-Baltic relations, according to the author, lays in different perceptions of the common history, as well as in attempts of the Baltic political elite to shape their Russian policy according to a certain ideological schema. Only having destroyed this ideological approach, it is possible to open a new page in the bilateral relations.

The author deals with peculiarities of Russia-Turkey relations at their present stage. The author considers all aspects of these relations stability in a wide context and draws analogies with form and content of relations over the extended period of history. A particular emphasis is made on geopolitical rivalry of powers and issues of interest balance. The article is intended for international relations and global politics specialists as well as for general readers.

Since 1991 states of Latin America, Spain and Portugal hold meetings of heads of states, Ibero-American conferences. Spain, one of the principal sponsors of these conferences notes their importance in its Ibero-American policy and in formation of Spain’s relations with the EU. However such important issues as composition of summit participants, regulations of summits and their agenda are unresolved heretofore. Meanwhile new problems arise. For instance states of Bolivarian bloc as well as Argentine, Brazil, and Mexico are loosing interest in the Ibero-American cooperation. Greater efforts are required from the Spanish diplomacy for development of relations with states of the region and for alignment of Ibero-American and European vectors in Spanish foreign policy. So far hopes pinned at the Spanish Socialist Worker Party government headed by J.L.Rodriguez Zapatero have not proved true.

The paper highlights the problem of multi-variance of estimates of gross domestic product (GDP). GDP is the basic indicator of the size of the economy, the level of development and country’s position in the geoeconomic structure of the modern world. GDP data (derived from purchasing power parities of national currencies) for European, Asian, African and American countries sometimes differ by tens of percent or even several times. In the paper is given the description of the International Comparison Program (ICP) that is the main source of the PPP data. Particular attention is paid to ICP 2005 results that caused serious controversy among experts in the field of international comparisons.

The paper focuses on multivariate and controversial estimates of economic size and development level of China in the late 20th — early 21st centuries. The correlations of the economic potentials of China, Russia and the United States at the beginning of the 20th and early 21st centuries are considered. The reliability of International comparison program 2005 results for defining the countries' positions in the geoeconomic structure of the modern world is discussed. In conclusion, authors attempt to summarize the economic development of the «rich» and «poor» regions of the Earth over the past 2,000 years.

The tragic consequences of the Soviet Union disintegration that occurred 20 years ago are still not realized to the full. Those who in duty bound guarded the state interests (diplomats, the military, lawyers) suffered the most terrible blow. The author in his memoirs reconstitutes a picture of controversial emotions that the staff of the embassy in Berlin experienced in those years. The Soviet embassy in Berlin was one of the central points the drooping Soviet foreign policy activity. The Soviet concessions did not lead to reciprocal steps of the new-spring «winners» of the Cold War. Our hopes for a new place in the emerging post-confrontation world order proved to be mere illusions that burst as balloons. Creation of the Greater Europe promised to Gorbachev was moved to the misty future. The declaration of the state of siege imposed in Moscow by the State Committee for the state of emergency sounded as the trump of the forthcoming disaster.

At the turn of the 1950s and 1960s Catholicism adjusted to requirements of the epoch for the sake of preservation of its influence allowed a renovation turnover which was made at the Second Vatican Convocation. This move ushered the ecumenical openness of the Church and had serious consequences expressed in dissemination of religious pluralism and tolerance, in the process of active absorption of secular life which accelerated de-Christianization of the Western society. Pope John Paul II started the ‘new evangelization' which was accompanied with expansion of outward openness of Catholicism and implemented in parallel with restoration of Vatican’s international influence. These processes did not arrest erosion of the religious conscience of Europeans but brought about erosion of their traditional values which acquired a threatening character. All attempts to bring Christian concepts of moral virtues and to confront degradation of a Westerner failed. Under Benedict XVI the Catholic Church is striving to recover its spiritual leadership and to keep its position on the forward frontiers of the world development began openly to undertake ideological leadership in the process of the world integration into a new global order, to form its moral code and impart the religious sense to the system of control over humankind which supranational ruling elites are constructing.

Russian military emigration of the first wave in the European states of the Versailles system appeared in the conditions of formation of nationalism, fascism and nazism. Concerning these phenomena different representatives of Russian emigration defined their position in different way. The article gives the analysis of the most weighed position of the representatives of Russian emigration.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was the most dramatic event of the 1989−1990 crisis in the German Democratic Republic. The opening of the border crossing points of the Wall for unimpeded passage that happened late night on 9 November 1989 was later called a peaceful revolution. However, GDR continued to exist after that event. That period that ended on 3 October 1990 is much less known even in Germany, let alone the rest of the world. The end of GDR was the beginning of a new world, in which we live now, and a better understanding of the circumstances of its disappearance means a deeper comprehension of the mechanisms that govern our existence today. In the year of the 20th anniversary of the unification of Germany, it would make sense to recall how it was prepared. Nothing was as easy as it seemed from afar. The notes from the diary of the then Minister-Counsellor of the Embassy of the USSR in the GDR will help reconstruct the history of that period, along with the publications of the press of that time, which was quite sensitive to all the turns in the course of the solution of the national problem of the Germans.

At the end of XVIII century England had acquired the colonies Canada, Australia, New Zealand. At the end of XIX century the countries became the settler’s colonies, passed wonderful evolution, transformed in the agrarian-industrial dominions, laboratories of social and political experiments. At the end of XX century the countries continued their evolutionary way, kept and developed all achievements. Today they are the great food states, large producers of raw materials, energy resources, high technology goods. In the contemporary international system these middle states are not leaders, but on the cause of the high level of development they played important stabilizing role.

The crisis in the GDR had it own logic. After the opening of the Berlin Wall, the demand of the marchers to democratise the political life of the Republic were gradually replaced with the appeals to unite with FRG. The GDR population had an opportunity to see the living standards of West Germans, which were among the highest in the world, and they hoped that after joining the Deutsch Mark zone they would also be living like that. The issue of preserving the GDR independence was soon replaced with the terms of its surrender. Few were those who took the trouble to think of what would ultimately become of social safety nets, of an exemplary system of education, effective measures of support to families and mothers, and other achievements that GDR and its citizens were rightfully proud of.

Apart from internal causes of the aggravation of the GDR crisis, there were also external ones. The FRG spared no effort to accelerate the unification by absorbing the weaker East German republic. The options of creating a new state for all Germans (this necessitated the adoption of a new constitution and a new name) or of having an all-German referendum, which could underline the democratic nature of the unification process, were rejected. Those who believed in the convergence of the two German states as equals looked to the USSR, an ally of the GDR. But the Soviet Union shifted to the support of the FRG position. And forgot its own security interest. It is only ten years later that the new FRG and the new Russia managed to establish equal relations of co-operation and understanding that are vital for the prosperity of the whole of Europe.

In June 1961 at the first meeting of N.S.Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy in Vienna there were real possibilities to start with a nuclear test ban agreement in order to begin the lessening of international tension and solving the Berlin crises. But instead of the concrete discussions of these urgent problems the leaders of the two superpowers were involved in general talks with no attempts to solve them. The result of the Vienna summit was the decision in the Kremlin to brake the moratorium, to start nuclear tests, making the most powerful explosion at Novaya Zemlya proving ground. The author who was the witness of these events writing in detail and making a systematic and holistic analysis why and how it had happened.

The article is devoted to the crucial problem of modern international relations like NATO-enlargement to the East in the last 10 years. Firstly, the short pre-history of the NATO-transformation that brought to the non-stop enlargement is given, then the enlargement process is characterized both in military and political aspects. It is being explored from inside not only as geographical, but also as institutional enlargement and enlargement of missions. The article is focused on the changing role of NATO, which is reflected in the military actions of the alliance outside its juristic borders without taking the UN Security Council’s resolutions into consideration.

The early 1980s were among the most volatile years in Soviet — US relations. They might be equated with the early 1960s, the era of the Berlin and Cuban missile crises. The international tensions were greatly intensifying, and once again the world could have come on the brink of war. This occurred not because war was desired and prepared for by the leaders of both superpowers, but because, not knowing and understanding one another, they suspected the worst of each other’s intentions. The author who was at that years the director of the Middle East department in the USSR Foreign Ministry and the Head of the Soviet delegation on the Stockholm Conference on European Disarmament thereupon, undertakes a systematic and holistic analysis of that situation.

The present world economic crisis and its diverse influence on the U.S. economic, social and political life make every observer to look after the experience before 1929 when America was a society in which a small number of very rich people controlled a large share of the nation’s wealth and the next wretched years of the Great Depression and bewildering changes brought by Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. Some economists think the New Deal imposed norms of relative equality in pay that persisted for more than 30 years, creating a broadly middleclass society. Those norms have not survived being replaced by an ethos of the superrich, the genuine core of the reaganism. Princeton economist Paul Krugman showed that the country’s economic disparities are as stark today as they were in the 1920's and that the effort devoted to maintaining that inequality leads directly to a deep poverty, underconsumption and in the end to the second edition of the Great Depression. He concludes his forecast with a grim warning: either democracy must be renewed or wealth and its political fellow-champions are likely to cement a new and less democratic regime. The Obama’s phenomen is considered by the author in the corresponding context.

The situation with the European security is one of the most acute problems in world politics today. Мany European leaders declare about constructing the new Europe that is based on juridically obligatory agreements. This reminds in many ways the 20-years old statements, when an attempt was made to build such a Europe in Paris 1989. The base of that Europe had to be the CFE Treaty, the European Security Treaty and a new agreement on CSBM’s. The author who participated in those negotiations undertakes a systematic and holistic analysis on how this base was build at that time. The readers of the article can themselves make conclusions on the result of the Paris summit.

The latest year of the USSR existence began with the crises not only in the domestic and economic policies but in the foreign policy also. Two critical situations were before Moscow: The reaction to growing unrest in Lithuania and other Baltic states which threatened the existence of the Soviet Union, and the reaction to the American invasion in Iraq which betokened loses of Soviet supports in the Middle East region. Making a systematic and holistic analysis the author shows well-founded that the Soviet leadership didn’t have distinct strategic goals and tactic what to do in this situation.

The situation with the ABM is one of the most acute problems in the Russian -American relations to day. And we collide here with a historical paradox: Heading for a creation of an ABM system the USA to day are wiring for sound the former Soviet position, and Russia, which are against this US policy is taking in reality the former position of the USA. The author who was one of the participants who had made the ABM Treaty examines this situation and tells how compromise was found and the ABM Treaty was concluded in 1972 in spite of the fundamental differences in the positions of the sides. He undertakes also a systematic and holistic analysis of the present situation and comes to the conclusion that compromise is also possible now so far as the sides have the common interest in the counteraction to terrorism and Islamic extremism. And he writes what might be this compromise.

The first part of the article focuses the reader on the source of global destabilization which arose from the major post-WW II geopolitical confrontation with the involvement of two superpowers, the USA and the USSR. The author shows how the US has used nuclear weapons to bolster its imperial ambitions and to suppress the Soviet influence. The main point is that ever since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US has deployed nuclear weapons as the centerpiece of its strategy of achieving and maintaining global hegemony. The study documents the way that American leaders have not been sparing of the threat to use nuclear weapon to achieve US foreign policy objectives. The author reminds that the doctrine of «full spectrum dominance», the cornerstone of which are technological supremacy and nuclear arms did not come into being with Harry S.Truman. He simply took over a traditional American global strategy to ensure that the US remained the dominant power for the long term if not forever.

The author examines positions of Central Asian and South Caucasus countries as well as states adjacent to these countries occupy in the world. The author supports his interpretation with analysis of the latest data on absolute and relative (in per capita terms) GDP calculated on the basis of purchasing power of currencies. The adduced materials give evidence of the fact that in circumstances of independent development and reconstructive economic growth, under impact of deep economic crisis these countries did not converge. On the contrary, they increasingly came off within global social and economic space. A particular attention is paid to social consequences of economic dynamics including main characteristics of majority of these countries' populations. For this purpose per capita consumption indicators are examined (per capita consumption of the most qualitative foodstuffs, i.e. meets, fish, milk, eggs and sugar) as well as indicators of population provision with durable goods. Situation in the sphere of popular education is examined primarily on the basis of data on development of higher education. The similar examination of public health is done on basis of data on dynamics of infant mortality, aggregate per capita expenses on medical services and comparison on these data with cumulative economic characteristics.

In the second part of the article the author touches on the main points in the postwar United States' strategic thinking and behavior stimulated by their privileged position of atomic superiority. Hiroshima led to believe that the american organized West and the constant threat of using the nuclear weapon could deter the rising of the Soviet influence, address new long-term challenges from the Third World and maintain the global dominance of the western civilization. As might be seen from documentary material the major conflict between «hegemonic liberalism» and communism of different versions was the product not only of great colliding forces of history but also of the personalities and human inconstancy of those making the decisions, politicians, military men, nuclear scientists, ideologists and strategists. In this section of the article the author concentrates in particular on the Soviet-American technological competition moving through the new cycle beginning with the end of the american atomic monopoly and the appearance of a dangerous intention in U.S. foreign policy and military establishment to support different plans of preemptive nuclear war. As the author see in a big transfer in U.S.-Soviet relationship from the early nuclear decades to the present period, when leaders of both states can seriously discuss nuclear proliferation and abolition, was in large part due to the combination of «good diplomacy» provided by the approximate nuclear parity, the psychological turn after Sputnik launch and the fundamental change in the world structure.

The 1948−1949 Berlin crisis was the first in the long line of post-war crises related to the former capital city of the German Reich that illustrated the unresolved status of the German issue and an unsatisfactory state of security in Europe. The immediate cause of the crisis was a unilateral currency reform in the three western occupation zones of Germany, which also covered West Berlin. The deeper cause, however, was the policy of the western capitals aimed at the partition of Germany and the inclusion of its western part in anti-Soviet political designs. Relevant decisions were made at a separate conference of Western powers in London (23 February — 6 March 1948), to which the Soviet Union had not been invited. The Soviet Union had few options to influence Western policies without taking recourse to force. One of them was West Berlin whose existence depended on the transportation lines linking it with the Western occupation zones of Germany. After the 20 March walk out of the Soviet representative from the Allied Control Council of Germany to protest the London decisions, the Soviet occupying authorities introduced «control and restriction» measures on the West Berlin transportation lines, which seriously hampered their use. After the entry into force of the unilateral currency reform in the western zones and in West Berlin on 20 June, the land and river transportation lines were totally closed. The air corridors, however, remained open, although it was relatively easy to make them impossible to use. This article explains why that was not done, and how the crisis was settled in May 1949 by a Soviet-US agreement.

The breakthrough happened in January 1990 when it had became clear that unification of Germany advanced on the first place in European and world politics. In hot discussions in Washington and European capitals the fate of Germany was closely tied with the presence of Soviet and American troops in Central Europe. These discussions were held in the Kremlin also but they have not appeared on the surface. What was the result of these discussions and what decisions were made are thoroughly analized by the author who was the ambassador and the head of the Soviet delegation on the CFE Treaty negotiations in Viena at that time.

In the second part of this article the author explores the negotiations in Moscow between Gorbachev, Shevardnadze and the State Secretary James Baker in February 1990. And these negotiations had become the real turning point in history of German unification. Three main problems were discussed than in Moscow: — On what conditions it is possible to have German unification. — It will be neutral or in NATO after unification. — Who and how will conduct these negotiations. But it turned out, that the Soviet leadership had not have the clear position on these problems and was ready to adopt the Western positions. Baker had come to conclusion that Gorbachev would agree on unification of Germany without any serious political conditions. More over, he will agree on its membership in NATO. And Baker promised that NATO would not move its military presence on the territory of East Germany. These positions Gorbachev had confirmed in several days to the West German chancellor Kohl and Kohl called their meeting «the grate day for Germany».

In the last part of the article the author shows based on the facts that the Soviet Union had started the negotiation on unification of Germany without distinct strategic goal where to lead the matters and without well thought-out tactics how to lead them. At that time we could secure our interests very seriously, but nothing had been done for that. We just swallowed an assurance made at the very beginning of the diplomatic bargaining that NATO would not move to the East on an inch and had been rested on that. But the recently declassified documents shows, that the USA and Europe were ready for very serious search of compromises as to entering of unified Germany into NATO and to further NATO expansion to the East as well.

In the second part of the article the author tallies up results of multiple-path analysis of China’s economic development in the 20th century. In fact, ratio of per capita GDP in China and the USA by the end of the century remained what it was in the beginning of the century. All six-to-sevenfold growth of the indicator in China occurred during the last 30 years. The author examines economic dynamics of the Russian empire in the long-term historical hindsight (from the 18th to the early 20th century). Original calculations and estimates add a greater precision to our views of rates of development and scales of Russia’s economic growth in 1883−1913. Even in these best years of «Russia we lost» the absolute and even relative gap between values of per capita GDP in Russia and the USA did not decrease but kept to increase. Similar calculations made for the present day reality attest the end of recovery economic growth in Russia which undergoes reforms. By the end of 2006, i.e. 17 years after beginning of economic downturn in the USSR and the profound crisis of transition period value of per capita GDP in Russia again attained the maximum Soviet level of goods and services output.

The cold war may have begun, in a formal sense in the late 1940s but its multiformity (including pop-cultural contest), unexpectedness, intensity and longevity only make sense if we understand that it had far older sources. To ignore the prehistory of the cold war politics is to miss some of the most important aspects of the story. The author quite explicit about this: it is a typical error to see the origins of the cold war largely from the perspective of the confrontation between ideologies, between Leninist communism and the Western liberal values dates to 1917. The author of the article strongly believes that the new approach to the history of international relations in the XXth century demands to analyse the problem from a different angle — mainly paying attention to the «wars of position» in which both the pre-revolutionary Russian political elite and bolshevism in power in their perpetual search of security ever since the beginning of WWI, through the Revolution, the Civil War of 1917−1920, and the intermediate period between the world wars saw themselves as engaging against the more powerful and hostile West. In the first part of the article the author focuses on the U.S. diplomacy’s efforts to implement a policy designed to prevent the consolidation of the Soviet influence in Europe and Asia. In fact it was the «protocontainment» project supported by conservative politicians and «Russian experts» like Bullitt, Kelley, Henderson, Berle, Kennan.

In the second part of the article the author explores the hidden political struggle in the U.S. establishment for the alternative scenario to the Roosevelt’s Russian strategy on the eve of the WWII and until mid-1944. The U.S. ambassador in Japan Joseph Clark Grew ought to be mentioned as an influential senior member of the State department’s staff who proposed to use the «Japanese card» in order to out-game the Soviet Union and make it much more dependent on the U.S. good will and American power as the world stabilizer. His views were shared by W. Bullitt who among others proposed a bunch of measures to halt Soviet «expansionism». Ex-ambassador to the Soviet Union was the most inventive and persistent protagonist for U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union which could increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy had to operate. The idea of Pan-Europe including strong, militarized Germany was the keystone of his anticommunist containment project. The Cold War bacillus was originated also from the distrust among the Allies which arose together with the decision of Washington and London to develop secretly the atomic weapon for use against the axis powers and (as an effective means of preventive diplomacy) the Soviet Union. Thus the Cold War roots in the pre 2nd world war history helps to explain why this new long-term conflict emerged so quickly after the Great Alliance had won victory over its adversaries. It helps also to explain why the Kennan’s postulate from his «Long telegram» (1946) sounds like a final sentence: the USA «must continue to regard the Soviet Union as a rival, not a partner, in the political arena».

How Germany unification had started and what was the policy of the Soviet Union? These questions are being raised again and again by historians, journalists and common people. The author, who was at that time the Soviet ambassador and the USSR representative at the Viena negotiations on European security and reduction of the conventional armed forces in Europe, gives the answers on these questions based on his diaries of that time and new Soviet and Western declassified documents. The essay, based on facts, discovers illusions, which existed in this autumn of 1989 both in Soviet and Western leadership, that the German unification was not the reality in the near future. And only after the fall of the Berlin Wall both Moscow and Western capitals began to understand that Germany unification had bursted literally into the agenda of World politics. The author describes in details how these approaching problems of Germany unification were discussed in the Kremlin. This late recovery of sight, duality of Gorbachev politics, the absence of the strategic line, and the set that the history will decide all these problems in 50−100 years has become the tragedy of the Soviet foreign policy.

What were the mysteries of German unification and how the policy was working out in Moscow and Washington in the end of 1989 when it had become clear that unification was inevitable? The author, who was at that time the Soviet ambassador and the USSR representative at the Viena negotiations on European security and reduction of the conventional armed forces in Europe, gives the answers on these questions based on his diaries of that time and new Soviet and Western declassified documents. The essay based on facts discovers such a picture. By that time the USA and FRG had taken the firm position that the unification was inevitable and as soon as possible. Moreover, the United Germany had to be in NATO. But a disorder prevailed in the Kremlin where different positions were advanced. Gorbachev had chosen the policy of “nothing to do”, obviously not making up his mind to take responsibility on himself and hoping that everything would be settled by history if not in 100 years but in no case during his life. And so he had taken a two –faced position. Depending on his interlocutors he told one that we had not to loose GDR in any case, and to the other that any country had the right to choose its own way.

In the third part of this article the author explores the negotiations on Malta between Gorbachev and Bush. Not many people remember that meeting to day. But it’s a pity. As on Yalta 45 years before, two leaders of the USSR and the USA had decided on Malta in December 1989 the fate of Germany and of the Eastern Europe, but only in a quite opposite direction. Gorbachev had recognized there the right of any state for a freedom of choice, including the right to reconsider the previous one. The Soviet Union would not use the force, though just a few days before he declared that we had not to lose GDR in no circumstances. This unexpected admission Gorbachev in Malta was taken in Washington as a signal that the road to NATO for unified Germany was opened now without any conditions. More over, the road was opened as well to collapse of Warsaw Pact and to flight of Eastern European countries to the open arms of the West. And the USSR policy was taken as policy of idleness -only to bark, but to do nothing.

Since the late 1990s, after the demonstrative bombardment of Yugoslavia the world business elite straightforwardly and without reserve started to talk about necessity to impose the ‘global management' gradually inuring the public to recognition of this notion as a generally accepted one which expresses some objective and unavoidable process aimed at principles of the higher ethics and efficiency securing. This being said, it is absolutely obvious that in reality the question is about establishment of extra-legal private authority of corporate elites. This new power will provide for the maximum concentration of the capital in their hands and will secure the total control of main financial and information flows in the world. Insofar as the still lingering sovereignty remains to be the main obstacle on this path and it is impossible to eliminate the sovereignty outright the elites place their stake on whatever facilitates decomposition and erosion of the sovereignty, in particular, on regionalization, ethnic fragmentation and parochialism. European Union presents the ideal model in this respect and the new ‘world architecture' is created in accordance with this model. The policy pursued by EU leaders revealed quite obviously the true aim of this formation. This aim is to dismount national state formations per se and their replacement with a network of regions and ethnic regions that are to be the support structures of the ‘European construction' controlled from a single center. In practice integrations turns out to be the national disintegration, the continental area dismemberment and cut-off. Nowadays this process is described with a new term, glocalization. This term expresses the objective alliance between adherents of the global approach and champions of local interests. What are specific mechanisms, ways and means of this strategy implementation, whose interests this strategy serves — these are the principal issues considered in the article.

Ethnic regions play a key role in implementation of Europe geopolitical restructuring. The essence of the process consists in dismounting state structures and their replacement with network organization structure. Intensification and mobilization of European ethnic and national minorities occur neither spontaneously nor in accordance with local needs. The process is coordinated and managed from centers that have to ensure unity of minorities' demands and synchronization of their advancement. Big corporate business hides behind these centers. Using anti-universal minorities' ambitions big business by virtue of respective mechanisms directs these ambitions into anti-state streambed and makes minorities its objective allies. Though Germany performs the principal role in realization of this strategy it will not reap fruits of such political creativity.

«Dynamics of the hegemony crisis», a study written by Giovanni Arrighi, the professor of John Hopkins University has been a cause for the article presented to readers. Arrighi’s book is devoted to historical and conceptual problems connected with evolution of the world political and economic order. The people’s planet is undergoing not just a transformational but transitional situation when components of obviously different construction of the world emerge amidst diverse social transformers. However realities of the Modernity epoch are still present on the historical stage. The subject of the authors reflections presented in form of decrypted polemical marginalia on Arrighi’s book is the approach to recognition of mobile architecture of the global community which is to replace old forms of the «world order». The author also investigates subscriptions of the «design documents» of the forthcoming epoch, i.e. schemes and drawings of the contemporary or, rather, post-contemporary structures that are being constructed right before our eyes.

Due to centrifugal processes of late 1980s and early 1990s the Islamic movement in the Northern Caucasus turned out to be fragmented. That fact found its reflection not just in a new institutionalization of the official Islam but also in emergence of absolutely new actors in the Moslem field which hitherto had been single and unified. The author means numerous «Islamic» political parties and movements that vigorously employed the Islamic rhetoric and symbols in their activities. By mid-1990s these structures achieved the peak of their influence. Then they dwindled and nowadays they do not exert any serious impact on political processes in the region. However in the meantime (and not without influence from without) the Salafi grouping emerged and became the principal opponents of the conventional and official Islam. Events that took place in Chechnya in 1994−1996 paved the way for accelerated internationalization of the Salafi movement in the region. In 1996−1999 Chechen Republic was turned into the drill ground of the international terrorism which allowed the extremist movement which used Islam as a disguise to develop there. An exceptionally powerful force and administrative pressure was exerted on adherents of Salafism and that pressure was, for all practical purposes, indiscriminate. At the same time «anti-Wahhabi» laws were passed in many North Caucasian regions of Russia. That resulted in disappearance of moderate radicals' communities and strengthening of religious and political extremists' positions. Defeat of separatists in Chechnya, diffusion of the Salafi movement over other North Caucasian republics transformed «the resistance» partially into «guerilla way of life», partially into mobile, loosely interconnected terrorist groups. The extremist Jihad has spread out all over the region.

The article raises the problem of freezing inflammable trends in the North Caucasus through administrative reforms. These reforms, as the author thinks, should be centered around the formation of a functional mechanism to secure gradual replacement of the aging ethnocratical elites by a new generation of broadly educated political leaders with wider commitments.

The article reflects main trends and results of the economic development in China, USA and Russia over the 20th century as well as over a longer hindsight. Doing that the author repeatedly emphasizes the objective inevitability and need to carry out multivariant calculations of any macroeconomic characteristics when levels of economic development of various countries with drastic differences of per capita GDP are compared. The particular attention is paid to the critical analysis of wrong calculations and assessments made by the World Bank experts who compiled the summarizing report on development of 42 countries over the 20th century. In contrast with conclusions of these experts (according to them the Russian and American per capita GDP ratio at the end of the 20th century allegedly fell twofold while the ratio of the same measure for China and USA presumably rose by more that 150%) the author demonstrates that from the beginning of the 20th century down to the beginning of the 21st century both these characteristics did not undergo any significant change. Both in 1913 and in 2005 per capita GDP in China comprised about 15% of per capita GDP in USA while per capita GDP in Russia was equal to about 25−27% of the American per capita GDP. The author also improves accuracy of data on rates of economic growth in Russia in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries.

The author deals with the following principal questions: Are all totalitarian regimes equivalent? Was Trotski right when he was one the first persons who noted resemblance of Stalinism, i.e. the real Communism, and Nazism? It follows from the article that even though the West accepted the strategic partnership with the USSR to fight Hitler (Churchill's role is mentioned in the positive way), in years of the cold war principle of Communism equation to Nazism was laid in the basis of confrontation. The same principle proved to be dominant in formation of national memories about WWII in the Baltic states, in Ukraine and in some countries of Central and East Europe. The author points out the intimate connection between «theory of totalitarianism» which has gained a considerable popularity in the recent years and revision of the historical memory about the war and partial rehabilitation of Hitlerism. The Jewish aspect of attitudes to theories that equalize Communism and Nazism is examined. The author does not pass by silence the Islamic fundametalists' attitude to these problems. Tallying up the author notes that comparison of Communism and Nazism based on principle of totalitarianism ignores the essence of these ideologies, their nominal content. The difference between Communism and Nazism is as follows: while Communism makes its absolute of equality Nazism makes its absolute of inequality; Communism calls «for the sake of life on the earth» while Nazism declares «Long live the death!» If the positive sense is eliminated a society can sustain only due to the fear of chaos and anarchy. This fear is to be maintained by ruthless repression. Logically that may results in ideologically sterile super-totalitarianism.

The author argues that the destruction of the USSR was not an unavoidable outcome. In 1980's the Soviet political, social and economic system confronted general crisis very similar to the one that shook the West in early and late 1970's. In both cases the crucial developments of the time reflected a certain stage in the evolution of either system. It was not a lethal diagnosis meted out by destiny. Rather it was a big challenge to be answered by politicians and society. The Soviet Union could have survived had «all the king’s men» been guided by the sense of reality and responsibility with some admixture of good fortune.

The strengthening of cooperation with Belorussia is one of the most important and at the same time difficult foreign policy directions of the Russian Federation. No domestic or international affairs, however acute or dramatic, could remove from the foreground or overshadow the issue of forming the Union State. The presented article studies the possible ways of proceeding with the integration processes, shapes and the legal framework of the unification. The Belorussian vector of the Russian policy is dependent on the necessity of a parallel solution of two delicate issues — the drawing up of mutually acceptable economic formula of bilateral ties of an integrational type and the assistance recipe for speeding-up cautious, but urgent reforms, the lack of which increases the risks in a closer cooperation with Minsk. One could be skeptical about the idea of a Russian-Belorussian Union State (and many experts indeed are), but it seems that the problem of the delegation of national administrative authorities to the supranational structures would potentially affect all states involved and it’s study is of current importance.

The author analyzes the present condition of Russia-the Russian Federation, its past and prospects for the future, the rapid changes that occur in political, economic, social and cultural domains, discusses the situation of civilization and mechanisms of change and traces their historical origins. The author focuses his attention on transformation of foreign (external) context as well as on dynamics of the social mentality, emergence of new social corporations and elite groups, transformation of the world order terminology which has been formed earlier. According to the author at the present the humankind resides in the transitory state when a new social agent is already present and active on the world arena and post-modern constructs of the world has already emerged while fundamentals of the Modernity epoch are still present.

Those, who believe that the present global hegemony of the United States emerged through a process of the disappearance of the bipolar world avert their eyes from many very important moments in early 20th Century US history, which compose the essence of the so-called «Progressive Era» (1890−1920). In the meantime the beginning of the Century which now went away still has much to tell us. Modern America was born in those early years. A land of family farms was eclipsed by a modern nation of giant corporations and world-wide financial institutions. America has become a world power. Of course americans sought to master the sweeping forces of change by what some of the scholars call «New interventionism». The United States had pictured itself as a moral exemplar to the world. The rapidly industrializing nation expanded its economic interest and began a policy of diplomatic and military intervention abroad. This new interventional activism moved beyond America’s traditional foreign policy of reacting to events. American policymakers — and among them such outstanding representatives of the political establishment as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson now sought to exert growing control over external forces of change. They used American influence and power to shape the international environment. The two major group of policymakers — adherents of Roosevelt’s Realpolitiks and wilsonian internationalists sought to protect the United States national interests and both believed that American political ideals and principals are in theory universally applicable. Following the predictions of expansionists they both argued that the United States should establish a benevolent global empire but the former emphasized power while the letter — ideology and morale. First emerging before WWI this debate has continued to the present with little change in the basic positions on either side.

Upon redistribution of the «material and technical basis of Communism» it’s high time to redistribute intangible resources of Russia, reconstruct its semantics, secure its long-term strategic orientation, define and privatize its social-cultural fields. The format of post-industrial redistribution implies a greater attention to the intellectual and management resources rather than to mere material wealth of «Russia Inc.». Gradually people are getting to understand relationships among social cultural, political economic and technological aspects of the new statehood construction. Prerequisites for actions in the sphere of value system and semantics of the national statehood that are aimed not at readjustment of its practical mechanics are emerging alongside with the plans for modernization reconstruction. An intriguing probability of appearance of new influential players including some version of an ambitious corporation and political organization of the «new class» also appears. One of the issues often repeated in discussion of the political landscape, and not just by the professional political scientists is the issue of the historical dynamics' vector. Dullness of the Russian political landscape poses the ultimate threat of collapse to the public politics' feeble and unstable political culture and to the very fundamentals of representative democracy. The issue of an alternative political independent agent able to carry out a cultural revolution and to express justified social ambitions in a long run is also debated. One more aspect of the problem is the matrix of social political and cultural construction marked with traits of a post-modernistic performance and pragmatic technologic mentality.

The article is devoted to one of the most topical themes of the contemporary world, i.e. analysis of civilization matrices of the West, The East and the South. It is assumed that the matrix of the Western civilization (Christianity) has been built upon the «developing subject time» and prigress potential is now absolutely dismounted and unable to beget anything but the «model knowledge». In their turn, matrices of the East and the South are undergoing modernization which brings about melting of identities and releases powers of passion for supremacy and domination. Chances of the West in this confrontation are slim. However analysis of «communication breakthroughs» that have occurred in the human history as well as analysis of religious and lay matrices demonstrates that a mechanism of their complementary conjugation is possible. As this takes place the West undertakes production of «models of being» while the East assumes responsibility for sorting these models out according the criterion of their verity. Thus it is suggested to re-integrate the global transcendence which is disconnected now.

The western «Values» is a phenomenon immanently, structurally western. These fundamentally uncertain, necessarily parabolic abstractions serve as the pivotal notions of ideology, or, better, of ethical-ideological discourse, which is the vital nexus of «theoretical civilization» (Northrop's concept for the West), or of a «form of life» whose distinctive trait is (by Wittgenstein) argumentation. Its dimension directly constitutive of the social order is interparty discussion. So, «democracy» is nothing else than the political form peculiar to «theoretical civilization» — that is, to the West in its modern, post-Christian phase. Religion, or, more precisely, myth and the aesthetic generally in its actual socio-constructive capacity are isolated here within the pale of Temple. The today’s world owes its principal drama to the inherently expansive nature of the theoretical. That is, the West’s treatment of its «Basic Values» as all-human (and even, their hopelessly uncertain and parabolic nature notwithstanding, natural!) is, literally, just a reflex blind to any historical reality. The worst thing is that the «post-historical» West is decidedly closed to recognizing power in its historical quality — power, that is, which is not «formalized», not deprived of (in Weber’s terms) «enchantment», or simply of its own value which is (and was in the historical West just as well as anywhere) an aesthetic value. It cannot recognize power in its civilized form, that is, cannot accept it as the constitutive factor of a high-level social organization; e.g., it blindly ascribes to «democracies» modern Japan which is in reality an acme of the hierarchical, or autocratic. And still less can it recognize power as a legitimate, if only because vital, social force in cases less civilized, where power cannot help being at times fairly rude. In a word, the only certain (and obvious) sense of the ideas like «freedom», «democracy» or other current as «Basic Values» is the negation of power in its own positive value. Meanwhile, it is indisputably the main, if not sole, factor of order in places short of the western level of civilization (or organization). Consequently, the sole import of the West’s century-long moral message (not to be confused with things technical!) to the rest of the world is a blind destruction.

How did the U.S. diplomacy, intelligence and propaganda deal with the end of American atomic monopoly in 1949 — a development of major historical significance foreshadowing an emergence of a bipolar world? Using new primary sources from American and Russian archives the author addresses this question by first exploring the policies of both sides leading to this event: American build up and intelligence estimates of Soviet atomic program as well as the Kremlin’s diplomatic and propagandistic cover up of its efforts to catch up with the U.S. in atomic arms race. The article also deals with an impact of Soviet atomic bomb on the U.S. policy and strategy with the main emphasis on American government’s perception of the new Soviet challenge and it implications for both Soviet and the U.S. policies. The author contends that despite some penetrating insights into the future responsible behavior of the Soviet Union as a nuclear power, the «worst case» logic of American military and political planners led to further escalation of nuclear arms race which reached it next crossroad only by 1970-s

At the emerged turning point of epochs Russia experiences the crisis of meaning. Crisis of this type is one of the most dangerous for a social organism. This crisis finds its expressions in transitory nature of the suggested receipts of development, fragility of the social contract between the power and the governed, instability of the state’s position in the international community, and, finally, in lack of the elite «national corporation» which unites carriers of these meanings. The author considers preconditions for creation of the Russian system of strategic analysis and planning, describes modern systems and methods of forecasting, social and cultural foundations of the contemporary global situation. The author also expounds some considerations related to the current difficult external and internal situation of Russia as well as to Russia’s prospects for development. A great attention is devoted to phenomenon of the transnational elite’s new class («the fourth estate») which is genetically connected with intellectual production and, in particular, with formation of information and communication sphere. The strategic alliance of this social group with the mobile segment of the «third estate» predetermined the prevailing trends' character that, in their turn, are connected with formation of the geo-economic universe and making of the preventive global security system.

Fundamental, civilizational causes lie at the basis of the current global situation. The progress of history is the change of key situations, the change which has the inner meaning and teleology: the expansion of space for human freedom. The central revolution of the world history was the transition from traditional (pagan) systems to monotheism. The Christian outlook has become the supreme expression of monotheism. This outlook has generated the richness of the contemporary civilization. The Christian outlook has placed itself in the historical text in several cultural versions. Of these, the Protestant one has gained the dominance over the planet. In fact, this version has become the basis for the making of the modern world and its North Atlantic core. The 20th century was signified with social cultural revolution which set forth another version of the civilizational myth’s reading. Secularization which came forth as super-confessional form of the Christian outlook has created the cultural shell of global proportions and this paradigm has embraced not just Oikumene but the planet-wide Barbaristan too. The new age is characterized by completeness of spatial (communicative) space (this completeness has found its expression in globalization as well as by liberation a socially active personality from shackles of authoritarian structures (this second process has found its expression in the individuation, extreme condition of freedom a human being can attain on the earth. In result a social structure of global proportions is developed on the planet in parallel with its administrative and political embodiment, and this new social structure unites trans-boundary organized entities thus establishing the proactive and dynamic environment of the New world.

The article analyses global and regional factors which determined post-Soviet Russia’s and Turkey’s policy toward Transcaucasia, on the one hand, and volatile reaction of the local high authorities thereto. As the author argues, the Kremlin’s strategy evolved from almost total detachment caused by weakness of the state lost in liberal reverie to the grasping of its own geopolitical interests in the Caucasus to be adequately translated into a much more assertive international behavior. As for Ankara’s policy in the region its evolution took place just in the opposite direction, i. e. from the euphoric desire to fill the Transcaucasian «power vacuum» to a sober reassessments of the viability of the course aimed at political and economic confrontation with Russia given her enormous military potential. This resulted in a formation of a blueprint for a long-term compromise capable to secure the framework for constructive partnership between Moscow and Ankara in Caucasian affairs.

The author’s key them is the American nation’s westward advance since the Revolution of 1775−1783 and the complex of ideas about America’s place in the world implying that Americans had to seize whatever sphere of the earth they could. The adherents of these ideas saw American overseas expansion as a revolution in world politics. They determined that frontier factor not only impelled the United States to move beyond its continental borders, but shaped the character of the people as well as their destiny. According to the doctrine they had to behave aggressively to build an empire. They needed to extend their business and trade into the world’s markets. They were required to enter a missionary struggle for the hearts of people and their freedom. Expansion of different kinds appeared as a necessity for Americans determined by scientific law.

The author deals with some aspects of the Rusins' national movement in the present day Ukraine. Proceeding from the ethnic peculiarity of the region, its historical, cultural and geographic characteristics the activists of the movement assert that the East Slavonic population of the Trans-Carpathian area and of some adjacent territories of Slovakia, Hungary and Poland is formed not of Ukrainians but with peculiar nation, i.e. Rusins. Being quite serious about this assumption the activists call for a status of ethnic minority for this nation within the contemporary Ukrainian state with all consequences such status will bring about. The Rusins' movement is not a phenomenon which emerged just in the past decade. It has a long history and passed through several phases common for other similar movements. Initially it set only cultural aims and later brought forward political aims up to demands to create an independent state of the Rusins in Carpathian region. It is interesting to note that there are certain intriguing parallels in the ideology, history, development and character of the Ukrainian and the Rusinian national movements. Now the Rusins' movement has the same meaning for contemporary Ukrain as the Ukrainian national movement used to have for Russia. The Rusins' movement provokes a nervous reaction of certain Ukrainian ruling circles as well as of the Ukrainian nationalists and constitutes a serious obstacle on the way to introduce and impose the ethnic concept of the Ukrainian nation’s making and development.

The analysis of data published in the People’s Republic of China demonstrates that after 1970 the US administration, most probably, has grossly underestimated the level of Chinese strategic forces' development as well as problems this development might create for the US if Peking changes its passive foreign policy to an active one. The author sets forth several arguments in favor of an opinion that the US policy in the past three decades was, by and large, precisely what as the Chinese leaders would like it to be. The only exception to this rule was the problem of Taiwan. Thus, the US foreign policy is far from being the best from the US interests' standpoint.

The analysis of data published in the People’s Republic of China demonstrates that after 1970 the US administration, most probably, has grossly underestimated the level of Chinese strategic forces' development as well as problems this development might create for the US if Peking changes its passive foreign policy to an active one. The author sets forth several arguments in favor of an opinion that the US policy in the past three decades was, by and large, precisely what as the Chinese leaders would like it to be. The only exception to this rule was the problem of Taiwan. Thus, the US foreign policy is far from being the best from the US interests' standpoint.

The article deals with the formation of Russia as the political and ethnic national power through its territorial expansion to Northern Caucasus. The author emphasizes that, unlike other empires (for example, Great Britain), Russia’s principal aim was not to obtain material and political advantages but to familiarize indigenous peoples with and absorb them into the civil co-existence with other subjects. At the same time the author notes that the very process of establishment Russia-Caucasus unity generated contradictory tendencies. On one hand, one should not forget about existence of intra-regional contradictions among highlanders. These contradictions made a considerable part of the local population to seek solidarity with Russia. On the other hand, peculiarities of psychological profile of highland peoples are such that they do not accept the state violence and enforcement. Thus, Russia succeeded to win not so much due to its military superiority but due to its spiritual, moral authority. Joining the empire was not connected with suppression. On the contrary, indigenous peoples retained their customs and a chance of free development. Moreover, these benefits sometimes brought economic advantages in comparison to the conditions of the Russians who formed the majority of the empire’s population. The author emphasizes that Russia has always been and remains to be not just political ethnic national state. Russia possesses the spiritual and moral potential due to which it saved small peoples from the threat of complete extermination.

For more than forty years the Soviet – American nuclear arms race broken out of the confrontation of the two superpowers of the postwar world dominated the world politics. However the atomic aspects of the Soviet domestic and foreign policy was shrouded in secrecy. Now after the disclosure of secret files it is possible to answer many questions that have intrigued scholars and the public for years and which are fundamentally important for the understanding of moving factors of the Soviet foreign policy in the first years of the Cold War, its motives and peculiarities. The main question is: what was the decisive factor in Stalin’s behaviour and what steps he took to counter U.S. atomic diplomacy. Based on a vast array of russian and american sources this original and formidable work of history discloses how and why the Kremlin proved to be able to mobilize the human factor and built the atomic bomb in a very short time.

The crisis of 1990s attracted the attention of many Russian economists to the problems of economic security. Now we have a vast body of literature on this topic. However, there remain important problems of a conceptual nature: alternative definitions of the economic security are often contradictory, analytical instruments are quite vague, whereas the range of phenomena considered as belonging to the sphere of economic security tends to expand ad infinitum (from the questions of the planetary scope to the personnel management practices at the enterprise level). In the recent article, we survey competing approaches to the economic security based on its understanding in terms of national or public interest, economic stability, and economic independence. It is argued that the definition in terms of stability of national and international economic systems allows one to evade various conceptual difficulties peculiar to the alternative definitions, at the same time providing an opportunity to analyze important practical issues. We interpret threats to the national economic security as endogenous and exogenous shocks of economic and political origin leading to the destabilization of the national economy, and use this approach to describe major problems facing the economy of post-communist Russia.

The crisis of 1990s attracted the attention of many Russian economists to the problems of economic security. Now we have a vast body of literature on this topic. However, there remain important problems of a conceptual nature: alternative definitions of the economic security are often contradictory, analytical instruments are quite vague, whereas the range of phenomena considered as belonging to the sphere of economic security tends to expand ad infinitum (from the questions of the planetary scope to the personnel management practices at the enterprise level). In the recent article, we survey competing approaches to the economic security based on its understanding in terms of national or public interest, economic stability, and economic independence. It is argued that the definition in terms of stability of national and international economic systems allows one to evade various conceptual difficulties peculiar to the alternative definitions, at the same time providing an opportunity to analyze important practical issues. We interpret threats to the national economic security as endogenous and exogenous shocks of economic and political origin leading to the destabilization of the national economy, and use this approach to describe major problems facing the economy of post-communist Russia.

For many decades Rumania successfully employed methods of maneuvering in its foreign policy and, due to this success, gained the maximum advantages from discord between the world centers of power. Preconditions of the «peculiar line» emerged in the late 1950s and manifested themselves in Rumania’s departure from the position common for the WTO countries and in attempt to get rid of the petty, narrow-minded supervision of the USSR. Ideologically the «peculiar line» was based upon the theses that the «superpowers» performed negative role and the national interests had priority over the class ones. The «peculiar line» policy consisted of gaining specific economic and political advantages and benefits by means of traditional maneuvering between the centers of power involved in confrontation. Bucharest succeeded in achieving principal aims of this policy though many political dividends were left unutilized.

The author investigates the profound social and economic shifts that have occurred in the Central Asian countries 1990s, i.e., in the course of transition from the centrally planned economy to the market economy. The author notes a partial agrarization, de-industralization and de-urbanization, the drastic curtailment of investment process, the relative and even absolute decrease of educational, medical, scientific and technological potentials of these countries. All these trends are evidence of the increasing predominance of traditionalization and sometimes even primitivization and archaization of the Central Asian countries' economies and social structures. At the same time these trends co-existed with development of structures and institutions of the new, modern market nature. Such co-existence could be only contradictory, for new structures and institutions are typical for societies that undergo modernization, for small and big social groups as well as for individuals. As the Central Asian countries are gradually integrating into the world economic relations system dynamics and content of which are determined by the developed countries the modernization elements are becoming more active. As a result of that all aspects of the everyday life of people who live in Central Asia, whether they live in the countryside or are city dwellers, are characterized by exceptionally difficult interaction, co-existence and «struggle» of utterly contradictory trends: the traditional v. the modern, the chaotic v. the disciplining, the regressive v. the progressive. In the future transition to the accelerated economic growth along the lines of the «catching-up» development will inevitably and quite soon require a comprehensive support of public education and health systems, preservation and development of the real scientific potential and, finally, a reasonable policy of industrialization and services development which will help to increase performance of all branches of national economies.

In recent years, Moscow's relations with Nato evolved along a vicious cycle of love and hate: musings about potential Russian membership in the Alliance were followed by Nato's eastward enlargement and mutual animosity. This essay analyzes Russia's internal debate on its relations with Nato over 1990s and the reasons behind Russia's contradictory policies on Nato expansion. These were determined to a large extent by Russia's authoritarian modernizers' craving for a seat in the Alliance perceived as a military-political equivalent of "the West" and of the center of the world system. This holistic image neglected the controversial status of Nato and its expansion within Western world, not to speak of the rest of the global community, and the intensity of debates between Euroatlantic expansionists and their domestic opponents. This misperception, along with the Kremlin's short-term interests, enabled Western expansionists to engage Russia on their terms in a bargaining process, which made the bulk of Russia's foreign policy elite an often unconscious participant of Nato expansion and intervention. Russia's policies oscillated between utopian embrace of a North Atlantic community from Vancouver to Vladivostok (which, if ever achieved, might lead to an institutionalization of the North-South divide, thus pitting Russia against its own southern neighbors), and, on the other hand, fatalistic resignation before an enlargement that was perceived as inevitable, however unpleasant, geopolitical development. In addition, Moscow's approach to Nato was driven by internal cold war between Russia's authoritarian reformers and the parliament, which was not to be allowed to set the agenda and emerge as a decision-making force in foreign policy. This helps explain Moscow's consent that the Nato-Russia Founding Act be in fact an executive agreement rather than a legally binding treaty. These internal and self-imposed constraints on Russia's diplomacy helped to shape an outcome that, judging by Western sources, was far from predetermined.

Adducing rich empirical data the author demonstrates that the central tenet of neo-liberal policy, the proposition that a market economy is able to perform in self- regulating manner is just an illusion. The state regulation is the permanent requirement and only when (and if) the economy is well adjusted it is possible to control pace of growth and rates of inflation. Only under these circumstances an “openness” of economy, i.e. ability of an economy to function in the absence of the state’s protection is possible. A weak economy, if it is “open”, is inevitably becoming a donor for the developed countries.

In this part of the article the author describes the process of the world economy’s transformation in the neoliberal vein: demise of Bretton-Woods agreements and development of system of characteristics within the Washington consensus as well as the post-Washington consensus program. The author expounds the essence of the neoliberal transformation of economy and shows that the strong economies are affected by these transformations rather mildly and efficiency of such economies can be greatly enhanced due to efforts taken by the state as a regulator of economy. On the contrary, a weak economy is quite vulnerable and if it is entering the neoliberal regime it is susceptible to pressures of the old negative as well as of new negative factors. At the same time all compensatory mechanisms that existed earlier cease to act. Thus the neoliberal model produces only minuses, one of which is a tendency to increase the mass of shadow and criminal economy. The author’s conclusion is that only a regulated mixed economy may be really efficient.

The author considers differences between the classic market economy and the market economy of the neo-liberal type. The author demonstrates that the transition from the system of regulated market economy to the economy of the neo-liberal type did not bring the modern economy any closer to the 19th model. On the contrary, the present day economy is at greater distance from the 19th model. The author points out that the neo-liberal economy is not the economy of growth: it is the economy of redistribution. Due to its inherent properties the neo-liberal economy’s life expectancy is quite limited. The neo-liberal economy is doomed to disappear in 30-40 years. According to estimates, the neo-liberal experiment in 25 years cost 400 trillion dollars to the world economy and 90 trillion dollars to the US economy. These staggering losses have undermined the American economy’s capacity to compete with the East Asian economies, in particular with the economy of China which is the principal systemic competitor to the global neo-liberal market system. The author presents arguments in favor of position according to which the return to a market economy system characteristics of which will be similar to those of Bretton-Woods System era world economy.