Suchergebnisse

Despite the panic in the American media surrounding Russian interference in American affairs, today Russia does not have its own full-fledged lobby in the United States. Russian experts are excluded from the American foreign policy debate, even in those matters that affect Moscow directly. Speakers invited to the Congress spoke, as a rule, with criticism of the Russian government. Meanwhile, in the United States exists a request for an alternative opinion of experts from Russia. Americans ignore weak arguments and propaganda, but are ready to accept useful criticism and discussion. The key to the success of Russia's lobbying aspirations may be the creation in Washington of a respectable analytical center expressing the interests of Moscow and actively participating in American foreign policy discussion.

The article clarifies author's typology of conflict behavior in contemporary international conflicts proposed in previous papers. Based on the methodology of analysis of the motives for conflict behavior the paper contains a classification of the most significant international conflicts 1990-2000's with the participation of Russia. In conclusion are given the results of an in-depth analysis of the Georgian- South Ossetian conflict in 2008, with an emphasis on analyzing the behavior of Georgia, Russia and the United States.

.

The Caucasus has always been a formative region for Russian foreign policy-making. While the North Caucasus has retained its position as Russia's most fragile and politically instable region, the South Caucasus provided the most pressing security challenges shaping Russian foreign policy since the early nineteenth century. In this article, we argue that the Caucasus comprises a distinct environment that exposes the underlying features of the Russian grand strategy, namely its propensity to hard power and balancing, and yet, at the same time, the fragility of Russia's position within such a turbulent region. The historical strategic equation with Turkey and Iran has in recent decades been supplemented with a competitive Russia-NATO security dynamic in the Black sea. The threat of possible NATO enlargement in the South Caucasus forces Moscow to draw particular attention to the southern direction of its defences. The situation has become even more complicated with the onset of the Ukraine crisis and Russian engagement in Syria. Historical experience teaches Russia to cease any other foreign policy endeavours until the Caucasus is at peace or at least does not threaten a spill-over of instability. For now, this is a very distant prospect.

The evolution of digital technologies rooted in the transformation of the world into a holistic quantifiable system brings about foundational shifts in how an individuals interact with information. Current technological progress is cyclical in nature: emerging capabilities create different environment with new threats that prompt further search for technological solutions to address them, and occurs \on two interwoven tracks: the increasing sophistication of the information system itself (better ways to collect, store and analyze data) and better means of human interaction with it (search engines, faster connection, more seamless interface with devices). Similar in scope to the spread of printed books, the digital transformation is still at its nascency: the "printing press" has been invented, but the humanity is yet to perfect it and experience the full array of social and political changes it is bound to incur. This article is an attempt to peek into such "digital future". Taking stock of the observable trends it charts the course of major shifts in approaches to foreign policy and maps out possible impediments for effective leadership in the new era. The conceptualization of the transformations is picking up speed, yet main IR schools tackling dispersed aspects, such as the impact of digital technologies on the balance of power (realism), on the nature of government and international environment (liberalism) and on the interpretation of the emerging processes (constructivism), do not offer a comprehensive approach. At the same time despite the growing analyzability and, hence, rationality of the world the studies of the decision-making process still struggle to account for the "human nature" of state leadership. The futility of the attempts to measure irrationality underlines the core argument of the article – with the overall trend for deeper convergence between an information system and a human the emerging digital future will be determined by individuals, who will remain the ultimate stewards of international relations. As a result, the efficiency of leadership, including smart utilization of technological advances, will depend on the quality of "human capital" of elites. On the one hand, accessibility of information, faster data travel and the absence of physical boundaries in the digital space enhance analytical abilities of individuals and improve the quality of decisionmaking. On the other hand, the increasing effortlessness of retrieving, storing and disseminating information results in the shift of perspective: laborious process of developing a solution is substituted by search for the most acceptable alternative, solving a crisis is replaced with manipulating the perception of it, and the quality of decisions is judged not by long-term consequences but by immediate movements in opinion polls.

Despite the panic in the American media surrounding Russian interference in American affairs, today Russia does not have its own full-fledged lobby in the United States. Russian experts are excluded from the American foreign policy debate, even in those matters that affect Moscow directly. Speakers invited to the Congress spoke, as a rule, with criticism of the Russian government. Meanwhile, in the United States exists a request for an alternative opinion of experts from Russia. Americans ignore weak arguments and propaganda, but are ready to accept useful criticism and discussion. The key to the success of Russia's lobbying aspirations may be the creation in Washington of a respectable analytical center expressing the interests of Moscow and actively participating in American foreign policy discussion. ; Несмотря на панику в американских СМИ вокруг российского вмешательства в американские дела, сегодня Россия не имеет своего полноценного лобби в США. Российские эксперты не представлены в американской внешнеполитической дискуссии даже в тех вопросах, которые затрагивают Москву напрямую. Приглашенные в Конгресс спикеры выступали, как правило, с критикой российского правительства. Между тем, в США существует запрос на альтернативное мнение экспертов из России. Американцы игнорируют слабые аргументы и пропаганду, однако готовы воспринимать здравую критику и дискуссию. Залогом успеха лоббистских устремлений России может стать создание в Вашингтоне респектабельного аналитического центра, выражающего интересы Москвы и активно участвующего в американской внешнеполитической жизни.