Suchergebnisse

After the Cold War, the "end of history" thesis was largely internalized and expressed with the assumption that the entire world would unify under liberal principles, which would be enforced under U.S. benign leadership. As the international distribution of power shifts and the relative power of the West steadily declines, the role of liberalism in domestic and international politics recedes. Western states have increasingly expressed their concern about the decline of the so-called "liberal international order." This article argues that restraining the excesses of liberalism is a positive factor and a necessary correction. Unfettered, not self-corrected liberal ideology has blinded the West by the belief in its own righteousness. We have now reached the point where the current state of affairs no longer works.

Will increased economic connectivity on the Eurasian supercontinent convert Europe into the western peninsula of Greater Eurasia? US geoeconomic primacy has relied on organizing the two other major economic regions of the world, Europe and Asia, into the US-led trans-Atlantic region and Indo-Pacific region. Greater Eurasia is a geoeconomic initiative by Russia and China to integrate Europe and Asia to construct a new region. Greater Eurasia is constructed by first establishing a Russian-Chinese regional partnership that decouples from US primacy, and second to integrate Europe into the new Eurasian region. The geoeconomic architecture for region-building, much like the economics of nation-building, consists of developing connectivity and dependencies with strategic industries, transportation corridors, and financial instruments.

Moscow is gradually replacing geopolitics with geoeconomics as power is recognized to originate from asymmetrical economic dependence. Geoeconomics entails state support for asserting control over strategic industries, transportation corridors, and instruments for international economic cooperation. Moscow endeavors to reposition Russia away from the dual periphery of Europe and East Asia by creating a new Eurasian constellation. Eurasian integration aims to reduce the excessive reliance on Western‐centric supply chains and shift the "balance of dependence." Diversifying economic connectivity within Greater Eurasia is imperative to ensure that Russia's excessive reliance on the West is not merely replaced with disproportionate dependence on China.

Russia's effort to become a geoeconomic power in Asia alters the dynamics of the territorial dispute with Japan. Both Moscow and Tokyo aim to prevent Russia's geoeconomic "pivot to Asia" becoming merely a pivot to China. Yet, a settlement is obstructed by the growing geoeconomic value of the Southern Kurils and Japan's lack of an autonomous foreign policy.