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This article is devoted to the study of world order in modern political theory. The author shows that modern Anglo-American and Russian political science share common problems related to its study. First, modern internationalists often unjustifiably take the modern world order out of the context of historical development, contrasting it with the entire world history. Second, modern theories of world order are characterized by a high degree of normativity: political processes are assessed from moral and ethical or openly ideological (usually liberal) positions. Third, researchers today often exaggerate the originality, or uniqueness, of the modern world order, although many of its problems existed in the past. Also, in modern political literature the concepts of "order" and "system" are often confused. Moreover, the mechanism of change of world orders, their qualitative difference from each other, even their number and names have not been revealed. In this regard, the author focuses on two interrelated tasks: 1) to define the relationship between the terms "system" and "order of international relations"; 2) to designate the systemic characteristics of world orders, which will make it possible to identify their number, the mechanism of their change and their qualitative difference. The article aims at clarifying the terminology on the subject of world orders and suggests considering them as completed political systems, which have covered their development cycle – from inception to disintegration. The basic concept of the order is that of balance of power between the great powers and the values and rules of interaction established on its basis. The world order emerges as the result of a total war and is terminated by a total war. Some limited wars regulate relations within the world order. The two types of world orders, namely, the hegemonic order and the balance of power order, acted as two equal types of order. Their disintegration is due to objective reasons, namely, the change in the balance of power and degradation of legal norms, which leads to the emergence of extra-systemic revisionists. The author believes that today's Yalta-Potsdam order is likely to follow the entire cycle of the development of its predecessors.

Thus, the present article aims at answering the question whether there exists an anti-soft power, both as ideology and practice, which could be efficient enough for the state to protect itself from the impact of external informational and cultural influence. The theory of soft power is based on the idea that its object accepts normative subordination. Consequently, such object should not pursue major political ambitions, should be ready to collaborate within the established world order and, above all, agree with superiority of the world leaders and the rules they impose. Anti-soft power is different. The core idea is that its holder is not willing to comply with the opponent's superiority as well as its rules of the game. The subject of anti-soft power is politically ambitious and never recognizes its dependence or inferiority. Regardless of being strong or weak, it will not admit its junior or secondary position in a community. We saw a few such subjects during the era of globalization. However, the globalization crisis may change the situation and thus give rise to a new political trend, that is the resurgence of anti-soft power. The article states that anti-soft power has repeatedly blocked the attempts of one country to influence another country. In the course of history, we can single out three main types of policy: 1) the policy based on supremacism, or chauvinism; 2) the policy based on ideological alternatives; 3) the policy based on segment restrictions of the oppo nent's soft power. Each of these, though, can bring its subjects both political benefits and unwanted costs.

This article continues the dispute about the application of quantitative methods in regard to international relations. In 2019, two groups of scholars published their critical reviews of my article "Statistic Against History": 1) «Towards "Second Great Debate" in Russian IR» (by Denis Degterev); 2) «International Relations, Science without Method?" (by Igor Istomin, Andrey Baykov, Konstantin Khudoley). This paper consistently analyses the opponents's views and puts forward some counterarguments. The author emphasizes that natural sciences deal with long-term, relatively steady phenomena and processes, which are objective and mainly of repetitive character. This enables us to identify regular patterns in their structure, behaviour, development and changes. By contrast, in the sphere of arts it is extremely important to achieve agreement on basic concepts and ideas or, in other words, scientific convention. It is impossible to use here mathematical symbols or figures to describe the concepts in the sphere which is closely connected with historical context and systems of values, which changes with the time and depends on different variables. The objects of humanities are completely determined by such factors as society, historical context as well as the stance of the author on the issue. Any attempt to change even one of these may well lead to distortion of the meaning of a concept and thus will ruin the mathematical equation underlying it. These factors do not exist regardless of humans, so it is impossible to dismiss Aristotle's logic. Hence, any attempts of such an approach (through using quantitative methods) lead to methodological problems and even often to methodological nonsense.

During the last twenty years Washington has used the "counter-proliferation strategy" in Korean Peninsula. The Americans demanded that North Korea eliminate its nuclear arsenals and plutonium production facilities under the watchful eye of the "five powers' commission" or the IAEA. Pyongyang's recent military provocation may now raise the specter of the United States or even South Korea delivering non-nuclear strikes against its nuclear facilities. That would give the USA an opportunity to raise the question of whether certain regimes should be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons or even to develop nuclear fuel cycle capacity. The last crises demonstrated that under certain circumstances North Korea could also initiate a military conflict in East Asia.

The article analyzes the problem of revising the interstate borders in the Arctic and the Antarctic legal status. These issues have repeatedly arisen in the international relations. However, the fight for control of circumpolar territories used to be episodic and conducted mainly by diplomatic means. Nowadays, the Arctic powers began to dispute the revision of the boundaries of the Arctic sectors and the distribution of the "oceanic co-management" system on the Arctic Ocean. The debates are conducted concerning the boundaries of the Southern Ocean's sectors, on the status of the territories adjacent to the Antarctic and on a return to the drafts of sectoral division of Antarctic. These trends increase the risk of interstate confrontation in circumpolar areas. For Russia a possible redistribution of polar spaces does not mean anything positive.